Alphatec Holdings, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATEC) watched its shares slide on Monday after the company reported that it was making changes to its executive team. The main change was that Terry Rich was appointed CEO by the board of directors, replacing Leslie H. Cross who has served as interim CEO since September 2016.

The company also announced that it has appointed Mortimer Berkowitz III, a current member of the board, as Chairman of the board effective December 10, replacing Cross, who will step down as Chairman, but will remain on the board.

As a result of this transition, the Board will no longer have a Lead Independent Director. Finally, the company announced new members of its commercial leadership team and equity inducement awards being granted to three new key employees.

Along with the CEO appointment, Jon Allen has accepted a newly created position as the company’s Executive Vice President, Commercial Operations. In this role, Allen will be responsible for all aspects of sales, sales training, national accounts, healthcare economics and value creation.

At the same time, Amy Ables, Ph.D., has accepted a newly created position as the company’s Vice President, Corporate Education & Performance. In this role, Ables will be responsible for all aspects of training and development for surgeons, sales representatives, distributors and employees.

Tim Berkowitz, Chairman of the Alphatec Board of Directors, commented:

This leadership transition is the next step in connecting surgeons and patients in the U.S. with Alphatec’s new and robust spinal fusion products. We are excited to bring in Terry Rich as CEO to lead the next phase of the Company’s transformation and drive superior performance for Alphatec. Terry’s deep experience in the U.S. spine and orthopedics markets and his demonstrated history as an executive leader make him ideally suited for the CEO position.  We are equally excited about the additions of Jon and Amy to the commercial leadership team.  Together, Terry, Jon and Amy were senior executives at Tornier and were instrumental in repositioning Tornier’s U.S. commercial business and positioning the company for a successful merger with Wright Medical in 2015.  Their combined experience and exceptional leadership will be invaluable as we move to unlock the potential of our product portfolio across the U.S. spine market.

Shares of Alphatec were last trading down about 9% at $4.46, with a consensus analyst price target of $38.40 and a 52-week trading range of $1.80 to $9.65.

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