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The introduction of the Defiance Knee and Legend functional knee braces put DonJoy on the map. Defiance, designed for active adult and adolescent patients with moderate to severe knee ligament instabilities, became the company's flagship product. By completely customizing the product to suit the patient's individual needs and providing a low profile, lightweight brace with a lifetime guarantee, top athletes could be confident in returning to their sport of choice. The Legend, meanwhile, became the top ‘patient-ready’ brace for active adults and adolescents. These key products served as a foundation that helped DonJoy tap its full potential as an orthopedic products provider.
In 1995, DonJoy began its growth by acquiring ProCare. The unification of the DonJoy and ProCare product lines within one 270,000 square foot facility in Vista, California, brought about the concentration of research energies and turned 1998 into a banner year. Then known as the Bracing and Support Systems division of Smith and Nephew, the company launched four top-of-the-line knee braces: Defiance, the number one selling functional knee brace, was further improved with increased durability and a wide range of new colors and unique patterns. The Opal Osteoarthritis Knee Brace catered to the functional and aesthetic needs of the osteoarthritis patient and TROM, with its total range of motion, was designed exclusively for rehabilitative purposes. The Drytex product line was extended that same year to include four new wraparound products and a sized ankle sleeve.
In 1999, Chase Capital Partners (CCP), Fairfield Chase Medical Partners and senior management acquired the company. Shortly after the acquisition, the company changed its name to DJO Incorporated, the first of many steps designed to aggressively expand and reposition the company within the sports medicine industry.
As always, DJO Incorporated is committed to building both opportunities for growth and relationships. Based on the company's reputation as a dominating force in the orthopedics industry with a history of outfitting world-class athletes, DJO Incorporated was selected as the official medical supplier and exclusive knee brace provider for the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Teams.
Located in Vista, California, the team members enjoy a modern, yet people-friendly campus. It is here that products are taken from raw ideas to finished goods.
The idea factory is the Biomechanics lab and engineering department, which takes credit for over 100 patents! Here, inspiration is honed into industry innovations and continual product improvements. Using highly specialized computer software, product ideas are explored in a virtual environment. Once they pass scrutiny, prototypes are developed and tested on mechanical surrogates.
But DonJoy doesn't take credit for their ideas and inventions. Some of the best ideas come from active minds in the medical world. That's why they provide a stimulating environment to foster their exploration and ongoing learning in our Clinical Education and Research Facility (CERF) lab.
Our CERF lab is open to surgeons and clinicians and enables continuing education on the latest procedures using our arthroscopic surgical bays and cadaver research. It's our way to give back to the community that supports us and help them Never Stop Getting Better.
The greatest amount of manpower and acreage in our company is dedicated to our manufacturing facilities where 95% of our products are made in both Vista and Tijuana.
When you visit the production floor of our Vista location, the bright, open facilities provide a glimpse into the future of lean cell-based manufacturing.
As our soft goods and selected functional braces rely heavily on sewing processes, one of the first things you will notice is our innovative lean manufacturing "cells". In these small groups, team members take products from materials to completed products in one compact "cell". Each "cell" provides its own quality control along every step of the manufacturing process and produces a packaged, finished product upon completion.
Other advancements such as a computerized automated cutting machine, streamline processes previously done by hand. Additionally, the machines save valuable floor space. As pieces are being cut on one surface, team members ready neoprene and fabrics for cutting on adjacent tables. Using floor tracks, the machine moves from station to station. It brings a new level of accuracy and speed to the cutting process.
As a highly vertically integrated manufacturer, even the hinges and plastic parts used in functional braces are crafted on-site in house in the plants. Working in tandem with engineering, machinists create one-of-a-kind dies for use in heavy-duty metal stamping presses and make specialized injection molding tools.
From start to finish, the craftsmanship and personal attention given to each product can be seen. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Defiance manufacturing cell. Because of the custom nature of Defiance braces, each product is hand-made from start to finish: from the carbon fiber skeleton, to shaping the leg cuffs to fit each patient's measurements, to the final personalized paint application.
Knowing every step of these processes allows our Customer Care staff to provide you with in-depth product knowledge. Whether you wish to track an order, learn on-hand status, or just get expert advice on the best product for a particular patient, we're ready to provide you R.A.R.E. (Reliable, Assuring, Responsive, Empathetic) service.
Our bustling shipping department is the final stop the product makes on its way to you. But it's not the last contact we have with our customers. Your satisfaction is important to us through the life cycle of the product. That's why we offer product accessories and maintain return policies in keeping with industry standards.
From start to finish, we are dedicated to bringing you the most innovative products in all the key segments of sports and orthopedic bracing. It's just part of our ongoing commitment to Never Stop Getting Better in everything we do.
As a market leader for 28 years and running, DonJoy is the name athletes trust with their most treasured asset – their bodies. As a result of this dedication, hard work, and vision, it is confidence that people experience while wearing every DonJoy product. Confidence is the ability to handle any challenge. Confidence is an unquestionable security. Confidence is knowing that every move is supported by the best technology available - whether performed on the world's greatest stages or those slightly more humble.
DonJoy helps athletes who become patients get back to being athletes.
Design and Engineering Every detail of the design and development process is scrutinized by engineers to ensure DonJoy's high standards of quality, durability and performance are achieved. The use of advanced software modeling tools facilitate the design and stress analysis of DonJoy''s products and help accelerate the development process.
Research and Development DonJoy maintains and dedicated lab enabling them to conduct extensive testing and product advancements. Materials undergo rigorous inspection to meet required specifications, an DonJoy braces and performance tested on specialized surrogate limbs to ensure durability and quality.
Protection DonJoy is dedicated to the Art of Prevention. Striving to minimize risk and maintain performance through the development of state-of-the-art ACL braces offering unrivaled levels of support and protection. DonJoy understands prevention is more powerful than any cure.
Comfort DonJoy is a leader in progressive materials providing new levels of comfort and function for atheletes who wear their braces.
InnovationAt DonJoy, progressive design goes hand in hand with superior performance. By fusing style, fit and function in each new product, DonJoy has earned the reputation as the innovator of ACL braces and other sports medicine products that offer unrivaled levels of protection and support.
Why do we need a Biomechanics Lab? Quite simply, we believe in qualifying our product claims before we make them. No other bracing company has a dedicated lab that routinely publishes medical studies.
Biomechanical testing allows us to test the efficacy of our products, and was instrumental in the development of our patented Four Points of Leverage bracing methodology. DJO does both in-house surrogate testing, along with external clinical research. By utilizing a surrogate, or a replacement limb for testing, we get an idea of how a brace might function on a leg. Our unique mechanical surrogate enables us to test products again and again, obtaining repeatable responses. With cadaver testing that is often employed in the industry, the changing of the specimen over time can cloud results. Our mechanical model ensures we are correctly evaluating the reaction of the brace on the leg, not the leg's natural degeneration throughout the testing period.
Our in-house ACL surrogate uses pneumatically actuated cables to simulate various states of the human knee, from the swing phase of gait, with very little load going through a joint, or coming off a jump, where a great deal of compressive load will be forced across the joint. We can further manipulate the ACL cable to replicate common sports injuries. We can see how the much the tibia moves without the brace, then repeat the test after putting the brace on and look for a reduction in the tibial translation..
Just as important as our work in the lab is our commitment to clinical research. Most limb orthosis products (e.g. knee braces) are FDA Class I devices, exempt from FDA 510k or Premarket Approval requirements. As such, the barrier to entry into the limb orthotics market is low. Consequently, today’s limb orthotics market is saturated with devices and manufacturers. This crowded market has led to ‘a brace is a brace’ mentality amongst professionals, where practitioners do not see a clinical or biomechanical difference between products on the market.
It is our commitment that we do not foster this type of mentality. Through collaboration with clinical and biomechanics institutions around the world, we are determined to investigate the efficacy of our products. Our support of clinical research is performed in an unbiased, independent fashion. We collaborate with highly reputable institutions, such as the University of Vermont, to study our products. We strive to conduct randomized, controlled trials, where the patients are randomly assigned to an active or placebo treatment. In these clinical investigations, patients are enrolled in a study, and their clinical outcomes are quantified. In many cases, both clinical outcomes and biomechanical outcomes (e.g. gait analysis) are obtained.
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