Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
Thank you, sir. (Operator Instructions). Sir the first question comes from the line of [Matt Mensa] from the company [Pern Driver Technology]. Please go ahead.
Matt Mensa – Pern Driver Technology
Hello. Thank you for taking my call. I was just wondering if we could have an update on the spine business and how the Altiva acquisition is playing out. And also that are you seeing any what the pricing trends look like in spine as well? Thank you.
Jody Phillips
I am going to ask David Petty to respond to that.
David W. Petty
Sure. Okay, So I think everybody is aware that following the acquisition we saw a decline in revenues that was based on some less revenue reduction that that we expected. We didn’t like it, but we expected to struggle little bit on the revenue side at early stage and we really have spend the better part of the last 18 months focusing on two very specific areas related to spine.
Number one is giving the sales organization that loss a little bit more bit more effectively. And number two and actually really number one is the product pipeline. And what we've done this year is made some improvements to our clinical pedicle screw instrumentation which with a little bit of a barrier to sales for respective customers. And trying to get some products into the pipeline that we expect now to launch in the second half of 2010 and that’s a new 5.5 pedicle screw system, our first year cervical system as well as the comprehensive PEEK interbody kit platform. So I guess what I was saying about it is that as we anticipated a little bit of a expense, it’s a longer road, it’s not going be a short-term accretive and positive revenue situation for Exactech that’s not what we expected, not what we are experiencing and we are intending for 2010 to bring both revenues and also just start to cover the expenses in the spine business.
Matt Mensa – Pern Driver Technology
And so that’s about pricing actually in that.
David W. Petty
I’m sorry, yeah pricing, well okay pricing in the spine in our experience let’s bear in mind was there in mind were a very small [primarily] is stable and I don’t think one can look at our spine business and nearly claim any interpretation about the market trends these current times . I will through add that on our hip and knee business our pricing is very stable. And even that we have been watching that closely with all of the discussion about healthcare performance as always we, always in discussion with hospitals about pricing, but our experience currency is in our pricing as remaining on a very stable in our hip and knee business.
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