DJO is an American

medical device A medical device is any device intended to be used for medical purposes. Significant potential for hazards are inherent when using a device for medical purposes and thus medical devices must be proved safe and effective with reasonable assura ...

company headquartered in

Lewisville, Texas Lewisville ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, predominantly within Denton County with a small part lying within Dallas County. As a suburban community within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the 2020 census tabulated a population of 111 ...

, that produces a variety of orthopedic products for rehabilitation, pain management, and physical therapy. It has multiple divisions including Bracing & Supports, Surgical, Footcare, Healthcare Solutions, Recovery, and Consumer. DJO has more than five thousand employees in more than a dozen facilities around the world.

History

DJO began in 1978 as DonJoy, a small company founded in a

Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is a coastal city in the North County region of San Diego County, California, United States. The city is south of downtown Los Angeles and north of downtown San Diego. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 114,746. ...

garage by the

Philadelphia Eagles The Philadelphia Eagles are a professional American football team based in Philadelphia. The Eagles compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) East division. The team plays ...

’ offensive line captain,

Mark Nordquist Mark Allan Nordquist (born November 3, 1945) is a former professional American football offensive lineman who played a total of nine seasons in the National Football League for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Chicago Bears The Chicago Bears ...

and a local lawyer, Ken Reed. Together, they named their new company after their wives, Donna and Joy. In 1987, the company was acquired by British medical device conglomerate,

Smith & Nephew Smith & Nephew plc, also known as Smith+Nephew, is a British multinational medical equipment manufacturing company headquartered in Watford, England. It is an international producer of advanced wound management products, arthroscopy products, ...

, for $20 million. In 1999, the DonJoy management team arranged a leveraged buyout, changed the name from DonJoy to DJ Orthopedics, and took the company public again in 2001. Over the next several years, the company acquired all or part of seven new companies. In 2007,

Blackstone Group Blackstone Inc. is an American alternative investment management company based in New York City. Blackstone's private equity business has been one of the largest investors in leveraged buyouts in the last three decades, while its real estate b ...

bought DJO for $1.6 billion, renaming the company DJO Global. In the first quarter of 2019,

Colfax Corporation Enovis (formerly Colfax Corporation) is a medical technology company, with a particular focus in orthopedics. Headquartered in Wilmington, Delaware, the company is listed on the NYSE as ENOV. The company has over 5,000 employees operating at 12 ...

, a publicly traded, diversified technology company, acquired DJO. In 2018, the company announced plans to move its headquarters to Lewisville, Texas.

References

External links

* Manufacturing companies established in 1978 Companies based in San Diego County, California Medical technology companies of the United States Privately held companies based in California Health care companies based in California 1978 establishments in California {{medical-equipment-stub