Mr. Mercer: Interpore Cross is a publicly held company focused on the spine, providing both instrumentation (the hardware) and biologics to accomplish spine surgery ' the customer base being orthopedic and neurosurgeons performing spine surgery. In biologics, we sell bone graft materials for other orthopedic applications. Currently that's probably a minority part of our sales. The company, as it is now, really is the result of the merger with Cross Medical, done three years ago. Cross was a small, publicly held company, having spine hardware. So the two companies together became Interpore Cross International, providing spine implants and graft material. Before that, Interpore was just in the biologic area with bone graft substitute material; that's a biologic material for orthopedic applications. However, much of our business was in the spine so it was just a natural fit for both the companies to come together. From a company standpoint on where we sell our product: we do about 80% of our sales in the United States and 20% of the sales outside the US. Interpore was actually started as a research company over 20 years ago with bone graft and biologic materials research projects. We received FDA PMA approval for the original bone graft material (Pro Osteon 500) at the end of 1992 and began selling it in 1993. We had a small dental implant division that was sold in 1997. It didn't fit the business model that we were putting together. So we are, in essence then, a spine products company focused on spine surgery. I've been here just over nine years (pre-IPO and pre-FDA PMA). Prior to that, I was with Kirschner Medical for about three years, and with Zimmer, (part of Bristol-Myers Squibb), for about 12 years. I came in as the CEO and have been in that position since 1992. Virtually all of the officers here have a very strong background in the orthopedic arena.
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