Arundhati Parmar

Orthopedics startup ConforMIS has priced its initial public offering and expects to garner at least $135 million when it goes public Wednesday.

The Bedford, MA company said 9 million shares are available at $15 per share but another 1.35 million shares are also available as an over allotment option. The stock is trading under the symbol CFMS on the Nasdaq stock exchange.

ConforMIS has made strides in the orthopedics world with its iTotal customized total knee replacement system, which it bills as the "only individually sized and shaped, or customized, total knee replacement product" on the market that is tailored to each patient's unique anatomy. 

The device uses the company's proprietary iFit Image to Implant technology to develop patients implant - in other words, the implant is developed using CT scans of the patient's knees and legs.

This provides surgeons an alternative to choosing implants from a few different sizes made by other orthopedics companies like Zimmer and Stryker. An off-the-shelf implant means that patients may have sizing and fit issues that may impede quick recovery.

Here is an infographic of the value that ConforMIS believes it provides patients compared to traditional total knee replacements (TKR)

An abstract presented at the 2015 ICJR Arthroplasty Conference that retrospectively studied patients who were treated with an iTotal customized implant from ConforMIS and traditional TKR found that patients undergoing iTotal had much lower blood transfusion rates among other benefits. 

Perhaps most significantly, patients who underwent the iTotal procedure had faster recovery times and patient satisfaction was also much higher. From the hospital perspective, the study found that there were lower adverse events for procedures related to the ConforMIS knee and costs borne by the hospital were not higher than those incurred if a TKR were performed. 

Arundhati Parmar is senior editor at MD+DI. Reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter @aparmarbb