NuVasive Hires Interim CEO for Good

Greg Lucier stepped into the post when the previous CEO Alex Lukianov resigned after an independent investigation overseen by the board.

Chris Newmarker

Nearly two months after Greg Lucier took over as interim CEO at NuVasive amid the resignation of the company's longtime CEO, the board has decided to give the job to Lucier for good.

"Since being appointed interim CEO, Greg has hit the ground running with an intense focus on driving NuVasive's industry leadership," Jack R. Blair, lead independent director of the NuVasive board, said in a news release. "As the board considered the needs of the company, we determined that this focus as well as Greg's broad healthcare and leadership experience made him the right person to lead NuVasive forward."

Lucier, a board member since 2013, was most recently chairman and CEO Life Technologies Corp. before Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. acquired it in February 2014. Lucier has more than 20 years of executive management experience in the medical device industry, including years spent at General Electric.

He took over as NuVasive's interim CEO after an independent investigation oversean by the San Diego-based company's board found that previous CEO Alex Lukianov had not complied with certain company expense reimbursement and personnel policies. Lukianov engaged in actions that were "not representative of the high standards by which NuVasive operates," the company said at the time.

Lukianov had been NuVasive's CEO since 1999, back when the noninvasive spine surgery device company was a venture-backed startup, and had been board chairman since 2004.

Chris Newmarker is senior editor of Qmed and MPMN. Follow him on Twitter at @newmarker.

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