MedTech Product Innovation Impacting GTM Models Webinar

Monty Sylvan: Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you all are well today. My name is Monty Sylvan. I am the coordinator for the membership department. Here at AdvaMed today, we have a wonderful presentation aligned with for you today, with the Alexander Group, entitled “Provider Inside Series, MedTech Product Innovation Impacting GTM models. Today, I would like, if you all to be mindful of any questions that you have, please ask in the QA Section just for organizational purposes.

Today we have Mike White, principal at Alexander Group, and he will be our speaker as well as Taylor Mullen. Mike, take it away.

Mike White: Thanks, Marty. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for joining. As Monty mentioned, I’m Mike White. I’m a principal with Alexander Group and I co-lead our MedTech practice, have been with Alexander Group for about 10 years, and then had the opportunity to work with a number of companies across the medical device and diagnostic space.

I’m joined by my colleague, Taylor Mullen and Taylor leads all of our research and analytics within healthcare. So, he had a pretty significant hand in the research that we are going to share with you today.

Quick background about Alexander Group before we get started. At the Alexander Group, we are a revenue growth management consulting firm. What that means is, we work with marketing sales and service organizations within the companies that we work with. We’ve been around for about 40 years, and they’ve worked across you know, a majority of the key players within the MedTech and broader space.

We focus on projects that help companies accelerate profitable revenue growth. Quite simply, those are growth projects or execution projects within the more marketing sales or service functions and have had a long list of experience within the MedTech space.

The primary focus of today’s session is to really get into our latest provider research, a briefing focused on product innovation.

We run research on a regular basis to help stay current on trends and share insights with leaders like yourself.

This study was taken by hospital Executives and Physicians Hospital Executives, including titles such as Chief Medical Officer, COO administrator and then physicians across four core specialties of cardiology, orthopedics, primary care and radiology.

What we asked about was their expectations. In current utilization of product innovation related AI robotics and other innovations as well as projections going forward.

In addition to that, we asked for market update information. So, understanding how? You know what their priorities are for 2024 and 2025. What are the core challenges? You know, what sort of price increases? Are they accepting? So, we’ll cover both of those topics. The market update information that we think will be valuable to you all as well as get into the details of product innovation and how it is shaping. Go to market models for MedTech companies.

The executive summary is here in the first couple, focus on market update stats or data, and then the remainder gets into product innovation. So, from a market update or from hospital priority standpoint, improving patient outcomes remains the number one priority, of course, is no surprise there, but which is what’s interesting is the next set of responses down from that all fall in the category of retaining quality personnel or reducing cost, staffing shortages and supply chain issues and pay. Lack of patient demand are issues that have subsided to some extent. While they still remain, the primary focus is on reducing cost and retaining personnel.

On the positive side. We’ve seen an increase in capital budgets in 2024. So capital budgets is one financial metric we consider to have a sense of what the health of the healthcare system is like in the U.S. There are a number of other data sources out there that we see that demonstrate or show how operating margins haven’t increased in 2024 as well as just net patient revenue. Whether it’s inpatient or outpatient. We collect information here specific to capital budgets, and we saw a significant increase in 2,024 compared to when we asked the same question a year about a year ago.

As we flip into product innovation, it is still in the early stages, product innovation in the sense of robotics, AI and connected products. There’s been, it’s certainly been a plenty of product innovation in Med Tech for many years. But the new wave of product innovation falls into robotics, whether we’re talking about soft tissue or hard pitch tissue orthopedic robotics AI and connected products in the results, or the input from providers is, it’s still a bit too early to tell how much these innovations are in improving patient outcomes or improving or increasing hospital efficiencies. And we have some data to support that that we’ll get into AI and robotic utilization are expected to increase by 50 over the next 5 years. According to what providers had responded to this survey, buyer influencers continue to expand. So, we certainly know that buyer influencers, meaning procurement idea influencers outside of the position have continued to proliferate over the last 10 or 15 years. As we introduce new products or new technologies, that expansion of influencers only increases and then shifting support needs. So, we know that within the technology advancements that we’re discussing or reviewing in detail today, providers are asking more from those tech companies on education in-person training. So, in-person case support on demand, customer service and a number of other areas.

So, all those issues or key kind of points or takeaways. They all tie into how MedTech companies are shaping their go-to-market models, and we will get into both those topics here momentarily.

Alright. So, starting with the investment priorities improving patient outcomes is listed as number one. As I mentioned, I think what’s more interesting is, I’d be really curious to know. The 26 who didn’t say improving patient outcomes was a top priority.

It’s interesting to see that the Ca improving costs and procedure reducing costs and improving procedural efficiencies are the next tranche down we have seen, and inpatient volumes or increasing patient volumes as a priority subside. This was, this was a higher priority. When we asked this question a year ago so good to see that that’s not a concern right now for hospitals, at least, as it relates to financial situations.

Staffing shortages remain a challenge. And they’re the top challenge that’s listed here. But as we’ve done a little bit of areas, we asked this question, approximately a year ago. They’ve subsided a bit as we did interviews with a number of different providers throughout this process as well. A radiologist told us about how the staffing shortages, at least in their perspective, have subsided. Some will remain, whether it’s nursing or other specialty.

The staffing shortages will remain for the foreseeable future, but they’re not as significant as they were 2 or 3 years ago.

And then another positive side is that supplies to supply issues have subsided, at least to some extent. Physicians suggest there is still a bit of an issue. But hospital executives, as you can see, they this page, only 34 said that they’re a core challenge for 2024.

This page gets into the details on capital budget increases. So, we asked the providers to describe how they are changing their capital budget in 2024 compared to 2023 and 74%. So, they’re increasing it.

That itself isn’t all that I think. You know surprising necessarily. But when you compare it to last year, only 33 said they were increasing their capital budget. So, 2x the number of participants suggested that they’re increasing capital budgets in 2024 compared to how they responded a year ago.

We also asked for information about how they’re about price increases, and they’re willingness to accept them. Given the inflation pressures we’ve had over the past couple of years certainly understand that price increases are getting passed through to providers. Providers are suggesting that they’ve accepted on average six. Now, this is across third-party vendors. So, it will vary pretty significantly, depending on the type of product we’re talking about. But I think seeing a 6% increase in 2024 is pretty significant because it was around 6-7% last year as well. So, they’re in aggregate accepting about 6% of what’s being requested.

And then how are they at getting you know, reimbursed or adjusted from a reimbursement standpoint with pairs.

Their average target reimbursement is 21, so it’s pretty big jump there it. But, as you can see on the right-hand side here, it varies, pretty significantly, going from 20 to 25%. So, I was at 5 all the way up to 30 targeted reimbursement increase. And of course, again, this is very procedure-dependent.

However the 21 increase on average being requested is pretty substantial, and the likelihood of the providers achieving that is fairly significant. So, 51 say, it’s neutral. 23 say it’s likely, and then 3% say very likely, for so there’s not too many who believe who have low confidence that they’ll receive that sort of reimbursement increase

That concludes the market update component. And we’ll spend the remainder of the time talking through the product innovation and impact on go-to-market models.

So, as I said, we focus our research on our product innovation categories in three specific areas and recognizing there are many other areas of innovation within MedTech that don’t fall in into these three categories. But these are three newer categories of product innovation we’ve seen in MedTech over the last 5 to 10 years.

First is surgical robotics so separated between soft tissue, robotic platforms, as well as hard tissue or orthopedic robotic platforms. As you all know, and you know some of you work for the companies listed on this page.

The orthopedic space has been much further along in maturity in terms of the number of players with the Smith & Nephew and Zimmer and Striker, and others. Many others have core robotic platforms where the soft tissue side has been a bit more challenging. Intuitive has certainly led the way in that regard over a number of years and has been a very successful company. In large part because of the Davinci platforms and other robotic products.

But the complexities associated with soft tissue type procedures are, in our opinion, hindering the advancements we’re seeing in some of the others Medtronic, Hugo and a few others that are yet to fully hit the market in all geographies. But we’ll continue to see advancements there.

AI is really broken down into or a large part of AI is tied into radiology. So, the FDA put out some stats towards the end of last year, they said, approximately 150 they approved approximately 150 medical devices that were backed by AI, and over 90% of them were in radiology. A few others are in cardiovascular neurology and a few in a couple of other specialties. But in large part we’re seeing AI advancements focused in radiology. So, some sort of imaging-type platform. Endoscopic AI is Medtronic as a genius platform. That’s been very successful at increasing the detection of polyps.

There’s AI and remote patient monitoring, and then AI-driven fast imaging. So, Phillip Sparks speed is referenced here in others where there are some component of AI that helps with the image, platform or quality. So, we spoke with the radiologist through this process and asked about the AI platforms that they use.

They described in MRI machine scanner that utilizes has it as AI that supports denoising. And so, what it does for them is it speeds up the process, and it reduces the amount of time that the radiologists of the text have to spend reviewing the image and provides better clarity. So, we’re not to the point where we’re seeing a significant amount of AI-driven procedures. It’s more in the range of AI-supported imaging-type products to help with clarity, detection or other factors.

And then the third category is connected products. So, this I would say, the majority of MedTech companies at this point have launched some sort of a connected device or connected product in the past 10 years. We reference here Medtronic, vital sync platform. That is a remote, patient, monitoring platform. So, taking pulse, symmetry, sensors, and sp2 readings and cryptography readings and putting it in a, you know, a centralized place for providers, clinicians, nurses can review a number of different patients at the same time.

We point out for lab optimization Abbot in an IQ platform is one where you’re provided inventory management or clinical decision support. Type, yeah, innovation or additional support in addition to the core, you know, lab instrumentation and kind of core boxes or capital equipment. So, the idea of connected products is any sort of software component that’s been adapted or added onto the traditional hardware whether that’s sensors or diagnostic equipment.

Alright. And then, Taylor, do you want to take the lead on a couple of these slides here in terms of what we’re seeing from an investment standpoint?

Taylor Mullen: Yeah, absolutely. So, part of the survey, we asked about investment levels, specifically across the following product categories. So what you guys are seeing on the left-hand side. And what’s being highlighted in the chart is the moderate to significant levels of investment that providers say they’re putting into those product categories. So, the top you see imaging below that, you see, telehealth remains a leading category. I think it’s indicative of, you know, the continuing need of some of the components for telehealth throughout the pandemic there probably was not enough investment and infrastructure put that in place, and it still remains a high investment area.

But looking down, you see AI towards the bottom. Well, it’s still relatively in its early stages. I would still consider this a pretty significant level of investment for both hospital operations and procedures.

Even thinking through this, we spoke to some smaller hospital networks, and the reason being that it may be lower on that end is that these smaller hospital networks are essentially waiting for bigger hospital networks to invest in AI, and they want to see and identify what is working well for them, and what products they can take and figure out will work well within their own network.

On the right-hand side. We also asked about the impact to deliver care over the next 3 to 5 years, with AI being the leading category for that. And 98% of the physicians that we had surveyed believe the AI robotics will both have some sort of ability or impact on ability to deliver care in the future.

Another important thing to note as well is this is a question that we’ve asked year over year compared to last year. Investments in surgical robotics are up. 23 percentage points as well as investments in AI are up 16 percentage points.

Mike White: Yeah. So, this is a, you know. Certainly. The expectation is this is going to continue right? And on the right-hand side thinking about AI. But it’s in pockets right now. As Taylor mentioned, one of the hospital executives we spoke with, wasn’t sure how to utilize AI, and why we would invest, you know, in in AI and any sort of real capacity. Yet.

They also mentioned the constraints and budgets which get back to one of the earlier points on market update. Well, while we see an increase in budgets and financial health. In the U.S. healthcare system. We do see. We know that that’s not A unilateral, unilateral truth.

So, this one that we hospital executive we’re speaking with said that there are restrictions on capital budgets. And therefore, you know, things like product innovation on AI or other areas may fall a little bit behind some of the other priorities they have. So that will continue to be what we, you know, we’ll continue to see. That will happen in pockets.

I think, in aggregate to see. Well, well, you know, AI, for procedures is only at 33, but it. I think you should keep that in perspective that we still see first of all, that’s 33 of respondents to say, there’s moderate or significant investment. And then, you know, if we were to ask that specific question a year or two ago, obviously the number would have been significantly lower than 33.

So, those are a couple of the interesting points on this page. As well as the idea that everybody, 98% of physicians and hospital executives believe it’ll have an ability to impact care in the future. And we’re just still in the early stages. But it’s an exciting time to see how much this will take off and how many products this will products and procedures that will help shape and improve.

Taylor Mullen: Yeah. So, another piece we were interested to hear from physicians was how product innovation is changing their practicing behaviors today.

So, what you’re seeing across the board for both robotics, AI and connected products, less than 50% of respondents essentially said that these product innovations are increasing. You know procedural or operational efficiency as well as patient outcomes.

And we thought that was relatively low. And speaking with, you know, orthopedics, one of the one of the people we interviewed was an orthopedic surgeon, and we showed him some of these numbers expecting to see his opinion on some of this. He pointed to the robotics piece, and he basically said that it was a little bit too early to tell right now, robotics is still relatively new. There’s still a lot to learn about it. Some of these procedures. There’s a lot of setup time that may take longer than it would without the use of robotics.

But I think the real benefit from robotics. And then, through his opinion, too, as well, is that we’ll see this change evolve 10-15 years down the line.

So, you know the minimum, the invasive surgeries or seeding the implants more correctly, basically reducing the amount of repeat visits. It’s still a little bit too early to tell in these days, and we’re thinking that the ideal or logic around, you know, robotics trickles down to AI as well as connected products.

Mike White: Yeah. And I think they on the robotics piece so agree, I think, that we’re looking for immediate results right? And you know, hey, there’s a pretty amazing advancements in the way that you know, surgeries are being performed and didn’t want to see that that we’re seeing the significant difference and outcomes. This was surprising to me to see. It was only at 26% said that it’s improving patient outcomes. But I think the reasons are what Taylor alluded to that. We’re going to see it. It takes more of a 10 to 10-to-15-year period to really understand the patient benefit there.

On AI and machine learning, also in even earlier stages in terms of the AI products being adapted to medical devices or other products, imaging products that are utilized within or supporting procedures. Is it really improving patient outcomes at this point?

It’s not a resounding yes, and we asked the radiologist about the different components that they’re using and how much impact it has on there, on patient outcomes. And his response was, it was less about improving patient outcomes, at least in the MRI scanner, that’s utilizing denoising but more about driving some sort of efficiencies. And you see a little bit of a difference between operational efficiency and improving patient outcomes. I do think that you’ll have as we see more products that utilize AI for detection of a condition. You know, such as the end of scope. I referenced earlier. We’ll see more and more of those. The improving patient outcomes category increase, and what we have seen in terms of investment and current and planned investment in AI right now is, I would imagine you know we’ll see that number. The 30 number increased significantly over the next three to five years.

I wanted to get back. There are a couple of questions and I wanted to get back to. One question from Haley was what do these percentages of investment mean in terms of USD? How do they translate to dollars? It’s a good question, and there’s not a direct translation. I think that with the way that we’re thinking about it is because there. There are shifting budgets, right? So, there might be investing in imaging. But they might, you know, the same hospital might not be doing any sort of you know, capital infrastructure projects. Or you know, there’s definitely net changes to kind of the net outcome, of course.

I think the way to think about this is that when you have a moderate or significant investment area there’s more in aggregate right? This is across all participants that there are incremental dollars. It’s hard to put the actual dollar figure against it. But there are incremental dollars going into imaging in the Us. Currently? So, I think that’s the kind of the broad answer. But without having more detail on the specific dollars.

The other question from Jed was, how is AI being integrated into solutions comprising the patient engagement category? It’s really thinking about patient engagement. A data mining is data mining solutions or AI-type capabilities that are leveraging to providing more insight into all the data that we’re collecting from a patient engagement standpoint. There are going to be limitations that we can do right from a data privacy. And that’s one of the things that’s going to continue to slow AI to some extent, is the confidential nature of so much of the data that we collect in the U.S. healthcare system.

But that said, this slide indicates that there is still an ability for AI to be integrated into patient engagement to some degree.

So, thank you for the questions, and please feel free to add in more as we go.

Alright. So, we also asked providers’ perspective on what they think about robotics. And then the next page, AI will be utilized within procedures in 5 years.

So, certainly we all have a perspective on MedTech companies who are investing in the products. But I think it’s interesting to get the hospital executive and physician perspective on how much robotics will, you know, increase in the coming years? And the takeaway, as you add all these up, it’s going to increase about 50% is what they’re suggesting.

The category that you see here that’s highlighted is the range of 26 to 50 to 75. So, of procedures. So, you can take a step back, just to be to be clear on the data. Here, we ask them to categorize what percentage of their procedures utilize surgical robotics today. And then what do you project in 5 years? So, the gray is today, and then the blue is in 5 years.

The biggest shift and increases the category that I mentioned, saying that you know, somewhere between 26 and 75% of our procedures will utilize robotics in 5 years.

Now it’s not greater than 75. I think there’s some reality here on the different conditions, the different applications and indications that robotics will be available for. So, as we see more advancements and shoulders and other common core procedures. We’ll see this number increase.

But we’re not going to get to the point where it’s you know, anytime, anytime in the near future where it’s you know, great. All procedures all surgical procedures are utilizing robotics.

The same question was asked about AI and the interesting takeaway here is that 60% of participants today say they use AI for very few procedures, less than 10%, whereas in 5 years only 16% say that they’re going to utilize AI in only a few procedures. So, there’s a significant shift, and the expectation is, you know, while we while we talked about, you know, maybe some of the mixed results, or it’s too early to tell on how much AI and robotics are improving patient outcomes.

I think that this this chart here and the data behind it, is indicative of how much confidence providers have in these products. That will continue to be invested in and transform the way that we’re thinking about operating on or running, operating or running procedures.

We also asked for input on the influencers. So, we know that the decision influencers or the decision makers within a hospital vary significantly, depending on the product that we’re talking about, and have increased, or it has expanded out beyond the physician over the last 5, 10, 15 years significantly.

We wanted to get their perspective on these technology advancements and who was making decision there? So, we start with surgical robotics through the data collected here. It basically says that in 52% of the cases, the physician is the final decision maker final decision maker. According to hospital executives and physicians. If we ask if we cut the data and we ask, we just look at what the physician responses are. That number goes up that position certainly have a perspective that they have a bit more, say, than what we do when you combine the data with physicians and hospital executives. But this is the aggregate average data.

The takeaway or one of the takeaways here is that in the robotics category physicians carry pretty substantial influence.

And when we asked one of the orthopedic surgeons that we interviewed who was who utilized Striker’s Mako platform exclusively. And we asked about their perspective on what would cause you to change, and his response was it would take a lot effectively, and that there’s a pretty strong loyalty because of the additional, not only because of the platform and the technology, and how advanced and effective it is, but the support that he receives from that team over the years. It would be a pretty significant shift to move to a different platform, and he was indicating in that case, so he was really the primary decision-maker for that facility.

Taylor Mullen: About that I want to pull up to is that he mentioned that the striker reps were there 100% of the time, so whenever they need them, they’re on site. That was a key point, saying that if he says if that falls off over time, that’s when they’d start thinking about switching.

Mike White: Yeah, it’s a good point. And those in the orthodox space recognize that that’s an expectation. I think that the point there, though, is that it’s you know, within robotic platforms there’s an increased expectation right? And many companies have deployed robotic special specific robotic teams, but there’s elevated expectation of support that’s needed. And in in. This was in this case was one that he was receiving good support, which caused him to maintain where they’re currently.

So that’s a situation in super surgical robots where you have vast majority suggesting the positions. The key decision maker on connected products over on the right-hand side. That’s much more spread between the 4 different categories of stakeholders we included here and the connected products could be a number of different things we mentioned remote, patient monitoring. We mentioned lab optimate, not optimization. So that surely so certainly vary shifts. But there’s not as strong of a physician influence on the connected products as you have for surgical robots.

So, what does this all mean to your Covid market models. Well, first, of course, you have to identify what this chart looks like for your specific set of products. And we work with companies a lot who will even do sales, rep surveys, and ask them for their set of products. You know, more or less this question, who is the primary decision maker across a number of different categories. And the response varies.

So we get even within the one organization and asking the sales team about who the primary and secondary decision maker is. There’s a significant variance which I think is reflective of how much more complicated the buying processes become within the healthcare system. For good reason. But that means that as a Med tech company. You need to make sure that you understand the difference between not only who the influencers are, and who the you know, the primary kind of secondary influencers are, but how their needs and priorities shift.

And then what are the ideal customer profiles that you set up, and the messages, and how you provide differentiated messages messaging to those different stakeholders within the same facility. So med tech companies who have done this right or lead in this area will have differentiated ideal customer profiles, differentiated, clinical and economic messaging, depending on the specific stakeholder that we’re talking about. They’ll have their roles deployed accordingly. So is the, you know, as the sales rep capable of having the more in-depth, technical or clinical conversation or do we need more support from field marketing or sales engineers in the tech side, within the connected products? But those who do this really well have that part fine-tuned where we’re starting with identifying who the decision makers are, and how their needs vary and then getting to you know, differentiated ideal customer profiles messaging, and then roles that can deliver those messages and maintain the relationships.

This is just you all know that relationships in MedTech still matter significantly. But we’re past the sole physician-to-rep relationship driving everything. The approach from a go-to-market standpoint is much more nuanced now than it was 5 or 10 years ago.

Alright, we also asked them to provide information on the support needed. Tied into the products, and it came into it came down to three different categories. So, more education and training needed more on demand, customer service, and then more clinical expertise required.

Across all of these, there’s an elevated level of expectation for these products. So, you have to think about how you’re deploying your teams as a MedTech company, how you’re deploying your specialist teams, and how much can the rep or the clinical specialists manage versus how much you need specialist-type teams to support this.

How much you need more customer success roles or roles that aren’t traditional in the MedTech space but come from other industries such as technology and SaaS and other spaces?

Getting the combination right, starting with how much the core sales rep can do or should be able to do what their skill set is, and capabilities are then moving into what sort of specialist roles specialists or new roles are needed from clinical specialists to product specific overlay specialists to field marketing or even roles like customer success.

I’ve alluded to some of this throughout the session but want to wrap up, really what this all means for your go-to-market models as a MedTech company.

First, and this is tied into AI and robotics and connected products, the product innovation categories we’re discussing today. But it also applies to really any sort of new product type launch. And in those you know, as many in the pulse field space with new, or, you know, recently launched products and many others that really this kind of applies to as well.

First is getting the go-to-market product launch execution plan in place. Too many companies fall in the trap of, you know, getting you know, products through 5, 10 K clearance, getting the having differentiated clinical data through trials and otherwise that support how beneficial the product is to patients and providers and then stand back and expect that we’re going to see the results come in without any additional effort or focus.

What leading companies do in this space is have a clear go-to-market product launch execution plan that starts with specific account facility or facility and physician targeting. Understanding, one tier, two tier, three tier, four type physicians who should be prioritizing for the new product. Moving on to differentiated, clinical messaging, understanding the role responsibilities, meaning your sales, clinical or marketing roles who’s doing what to execute, and then putting sales, incentive plans that reinforce it. But it’s really important that in order to see the return. You know the kind of the R and the ROI equation meet what you’re expecting from an investment profile having an in-depth go-to-market product. Launch plan is a critical step.

The second point is buyer segmentation. So, buyer segmentation beyond just the facility which certainly matters site of care, size of facility, and a number of other factors. But what we see leading companies do is have a clear buyer level segmentation. So, take an orthopedic surgeon or another. You know another surgeon or physician understanding their total case volume. Understanding their cases, we number of cases we do with them to put them in the category of, are they our kind of high-volume user? Do they differentiate between providers? Are they? Low volume? But you know they are dedicated to us.

Laying that out into different, you know 4 or 5 or 6 different segments at the position level, and then mapping that to or rolling that out to the sales organization, so that is when running specific sales, plays that are differentiated by those segments to know where they should be spending their time occur when they’re where, when they’re going forward with these new products based on who has the highest prop, who has the highest propensity to adopt the new product.

Elevated clinical support is the third one. So, what we’re seeing is teams putting together, putting in place more advanced clinical teams for robotics or AI. We’re seeing customer success I mentioned a minute ago be rolled out, especially in any sort of recurring revenue software base – think about digital health type category.

Customer success roles are becoming more and more common in those specific areas and have been very successful in the SaaS or the tech world for many years now.

Well, our expectation is we will continue to see an increase in customer success roles and teams being deployed in Med tech S, especially in areas where there’s an ongoing, recurring revenue stream associated.

The fourth component here is sales rep buy-in. So we can’t forget about the fact that even though it’s another trap that MedTech companies fall into is that we have this great new product that we’ve invested significant amount of money in. And as an organization, we have really good clinical results. We just take it for granted that reps are going to fall in love with it too and want to drive it and sell it with their with their physician or clinic clinician counterparts.

Many cases and robotics is an example of one where you know it does. Take a focused sales rep by and drive the results. So, they have been supporting orthopedic surgeons for many years without a robotic assisted platform. And maybe physicians are a bit hesitant, and the reps are very used to how they have been doing you know, the knee or hip replacements without any sort of robotic assisted platform, and don’t see the need.

And so, therefore, maybe the product doesn’t kind of get the off ground. That idea plays out in many of these new products. So, what do you do about it? Well, I think what leading companies do is they don’t just sit back and assume that the rep is going to kind of adopt the product and drive it, and it’s beyond just sales incentive sales incentives are one thing that will help, but it’s more than that. It’s getting down to the buyer segmentation, enabling them with buyer segmentation where they go. Here’s tier one and tier two type account type customers who are most likely to buy the new product or adopt the new product. Arming them with the value propositions and clinically differentiated messaging and then supporting it with sales incentive plans. But it’s not just sitting back and assuming that the reps are going to you know. Drive it, you know, kind of adopt and drive the new product or just putting sales incentive plans in place. It’s broader than that.

And then the last the last piece is physician education, particularly with robotics and AI. We’re asking physicians to operate differently or perform procedures differently and work differently than what they were trained in medical school and there’s a pretty big hurdle you have to get over to train and educate a group of physicians who are very intelligent individuals and have been trained for many years in medical school and in the way they operate to completely shift that approach.

So MedTech companies in order to make the most out of their product innovation investment and get the products that will have a positive impact on patients and patient outcomes.

What the leading companies do is they put in together a clear and cohesive KOL strategy. They put together education programs and they deploy roles like field marketing roles and others. It’s not just focused on our expectation of just being the sales team that sells it. There are field based marketing roles that help support and educate position.

But that’s really kind of the fifth priority around go-to-market priorities that drive better results or faster results within the product innovation and fall within these five categories.

Alright, that concludes the research that we plan to share today, as you know, there’s a few different ways you can engage with the Alexander group. We do regular research industry research so similar to what you saw today. That’s complementary. We also conduct different sessions on occasion with individuals and be happy to set up a discussion with you on those.

We have an executive access program which gets you a bit more on. You know, benchmarks and things like that. But majority of what our how our revenue is generated over 95 is through consulting engagements, and that’s where we have a vast a level of experience across. Go to market models. So please keep us in mind as you have outside needs for you know, consulting support anywhere, you know, tied into the go-to-market model sales, marketing and service functions.

And then the last page we will leave you with is current and upcoming research that’s available. So, we have an AI briefing that’s available with some more depth on marketing and demand generation. How it’s improving pipeline contribution in healthcare.

We will have a future go-to-market model as part of our Provider insight series. We will have a briefing on future MedTech go-to-market models. It’ll be available in August as well as a new marketing trends and investment deck.

And then we also have a marketing summit as well as sales compensation symposiums. And then our Executive Forum is in November, at the Breakers in Palm Beach. So please reach out to us if you have any interest in any of these or in having a separate conversation.

Feel free to reach out to myself or Taylor with any additional questions or information that we can provide.

And then we look forward to seeing you all at AdvaMed’s MedTech in Toronto in October. We will be part of the presenters and hope you can make it, and we’ll see you there.

Monty Sylvan: Absolutely another wonderful presentation, Mike! Great work! I appreciate everyone’s attendance today. And as you said, the MedTech Conference in October will be a wonderful opportunity to reconnect and view more of their content and information.

If you have any further questions, as you see, their emails are in their name titles. And once again want to say, I appreciate you all. I hope you all take care today.

Alright. Thank you, Mike. Thank you, Taylor. And everyone take care.