Bioventus Breaks Through with OSTEOAMP in Canada
Just four years after launching its surgical orthobiologics business, Bioventus has finally gained traction outside the US. Specifically in Canada with some OSTEOAMP trials that occurred in late 2018 in Quebec City, Quebec.
Dr Patrice Montminy, a spine surgeon from Chu de Quebec, St-François d’Assise Hospital in Quebec City, who is also head of the orthopaedics department there, used OSTEOAMP on two spine cases on December 20 and 21st.
This success has many parents, but was led by Annie Bilodeau, Surgical Market Development Manager for Canada. Based in Quebec City, Annie, who joined Bioventus in mid-April 2018, came with nearly 20 years of experience in Quebec as a sales representative, sales trainer, people manager and contract manager with pharmaceutical companies selling solutions for women’s health and ophthalmology. This experience included time in the operating room (OR) and working with purchasing managers to get products on contract at hospital systems and group purchasing organizations in the market.
“There are similarities between ophthalmology and orthopaedics and for this pilot I had really good connections with some of the key accounts we wanted to approach first,” said Annie. “Not with spine surgeons, but within the purchasing departments and GPOs here in Quebec.”
Annie had a great network, but also needed product knowledge and in April she visited the Bioventus office in Toronto to be trained on OSTEOAMP. Bill Gentile, Education Manager, Surgical, was in town to train Annie and the rest of the Canadian pilot team as they prepared to get customers interested in trialing OSTEOAMP, which was a key objective on the Company Scorecard in 2018.
“In addition to Bill, I worked with a great bunch of guys on the surgical marketing and R&D team that I call the S-men,” laughs Annie. “This included Steven Moore, Sam Tom, Stuart Lindquist and Scott Seaman.”
Bill and the S-men were able to help Annie get up to speed quickly on published data, product messaging and other aspects of OSTEOAMP so the learnings in the US market could be leveraged and the information could be tailored and used to full effect in Canada.
“My previous experiences working cross functionally allowed me to absorb the information and connect the dots to make this happen,” said Annie. “Near the end of May I started to book appointments with my contacts and ask direct questions about contracts, tenders and pricing.”
As Annie began to make contacts to introduce herself, OSTEOAMP and Bioventus, she learned the surgeon she should meet with first was Dr Patrice Montminy at Chu de Quebec.
“The hospital is affiliated with the Laval University and four other hospitals, two of which do spine and trauma surgeries,” said Annie. “I met together with both Dr Montminy, who is the head of orthopaedics, and the head of purchasing to introduce OSTEOAMP. There were some technical questions and we followed up.”
As the summer wore on, Annie could not get Dr Montminy to commit to using the product, but he did allow her to present it to his colleagues at Chu de Quebec and she was able to get them excited about OSTEOAMP. When Annie circled back with Dr Montminy around September, he told her he was interested but wouldn’t use it until early 2019.
Undaunted, Annie pressed him to at least trial the product. At the same time, Annie and the pilot team were organizing a mid-November Advisory Board with spine surgeons from Montreal, Quebec City and London, Ontario. At the last minute the surgeon from Quebec City could not attend the meeting, so Annie invited Dr Montminy.
“The meeting went so well that he told me on the flight back he wanted to try OSTEOAMP before the year ended,” said Annie. “Everything kind of fell into place, and as I got product and pricing approved a couple of weeks later and completed all paperwork needed to get a purchase order, he booked cases and used it on two patients.”
Annie was in the OR for both. The first was a three-hour case and second was a six-hour long OR session which gave her a lot of time to continue the conversation and share attributes about the product as it was used by the surgical teams involved. Both surgeries were successful and Dr Montminy was pleased with how OSTEOAMP performed. He is monitoring both patients’ outcomes and told Annie he would see her again for new cases in January. In fact, the next one is booked for January 25th.
“The sale is an achievement and the bigger achievement is that this has been done from a position of Bioventus methodically and patiently building awareness of an excellent product in an area where we have no company equity and no relationships in the spine area,” said Anthony Doyle, Director Commercial Operations, Canada. “One sale doesn’t make a business, it is, however, a very healthy indicator that we are going in the right direction.”
Annie is now working with her colleagues in Montreal, London and Winnipeg to get OSTEOAMP approved for use in area hospitals so surgeons who attended the advisory board meeting and other spine surgeons they are targeting, can begin to use OSTEOAMP on cases in the next couple of months.
“We are now able to respond to tenders that are coming out this year,” said Annie. “I will also join our reps in the OR in these markets to support and coach them, and continue to develop relationships with the surgeons involved.”
More evidence of this hard work and momentum is Bioventus having a booth at the Canadian Spine Society Scientific Conference next month in Toronto.
The company has never exhibited there before and now not only do we have a product, we have customers. What a great way to begin 2019.