Council for the Advancement of Biologics Advisory Board – The Power of Collaboration
If you do not regularly interact with clinicians or surgeons, you may not know they often take Friday evenings and Saturday mornings to take part in industry events or catch up on medical education, even after a long week of caring for their patients. Working extra on the weekends proves their dedication to the profession, but let’s be honest; giving up that kind of free time had better be worthwhile.
At Bioventus, we strive to engage our physician customers on a deeper, more meaningful level. This was reflected most recently this past Saturday when eight of the most influential spine surgeons in the US came together over Zoom for the second annual Council for the Advancement of Biologics Advisory Board, or CAB for short. Eleven Bioventus attendees joined to show their support and to glean insights from this powerful group of key opinion leaders (KOLs).
“Last year our theme was building bigger, presenting our strategies and garnering feedback from the CAB. This year it was building smarter: we did more listening and less presenting. By design, the lion’s share of the day was surgeon-led presentation and discussion,” said David Osgood, Senior Manager, Strategic Customer Relations. “This type of peer-to-peer interaction is the best way to gain insight and foresight into where spinal surgery and spinal biologics are headed.”
The surgeons came prepared bringing final versions of documents that came out of the 2019 CAB event including a value analysis packet for supply chain professionals and a consultative guide for young surgeons new to minimally invasive surgery. This is critical and heavy stuff, and the group is confident that these will be useful resources for their peers.
“We had some great discussions on how to maximize exposure of these resources through medical education programs,” said David.
Other KOLs presented on ambulatory surgery centers and telehealth, as well as some future direction for the CAB.
“This section of our program provided vital information on how the spinal surgery landscape is changing, and how we can position Bioventus to align with these changes, using foresight to skate to where the puck is going,” he added.
Future Bone Graft Substitute Offerings
While the CAB was together, it was also important to gain insights related to Bioventus products. To that end, Dr. Safdar Khan, one of three pipeline development consultants for OSTEOAMP SELECT Flowable, proudly presented the first ever procedure with this novel product.
“Dr. Khan performed his first OSTEOAMP SELECT Flowable case on October 27th to kick off its limited release,” said David. “Not only was Dr. Khan impressed with the handling and flow-ability of the product, but he is considering using it in place of his stem cell allograft in similar cases where bone grafting can be challenging.”
Building on this, Laura McCrum, Director of Product Development and Project Lead, further educated the CAB by walking the surgeons through the timeline of the product, from concept to limited release, through next steps as Bioventus looks toward commercial launch in 2021. Vineeth Varghese, Director of Strategic Marketing, probed the CAB to understand what procedural applications could be utilized with OSTEOAMP SELECT Flowable.
More members of the R&D Team came loaded with info as Larry Boyd, VP of Product Development, provided an update on Bioventus R&D activities, while Ryan Koch, Senior Product Development Engineer, elicited feedback on six different next generation bone-grafting concepts during a highly collaborative and informative session.
“The day could not have gone better and we exceeded the group’s expectations,” he said. “The next CAB meeting will occur in 2021 and, hopefully, it will occur in a world where we can meet our KOLs in person once again.”