Episode#117| Monica Wellejus:The Road to 3D-Printed Bone

Ossiform is on track to bring the first 3D printed resorbable bone implant to the US market. The company’s preclinical data showed full bone regeneration in six months. Monica Wellejus, Chief Commercial Officer of Ossiform, joins The Lattice to explain how a company built to personalize bone implants for craniomaxillofacial surgeries is pivoting to mass-produced bone implants for foot deformity, and why hospital finance teams, not just the surgeons, may decide whether this technology actually reaches patients.
⚠️ Disclaimer:
This podcast is for educational and informational purposes only. The views expressed do not constitute engineering, medical, or financial advice. The technologies and procedures discussed may not be commercially available or suitable for every case. Always consult with a qualified professional
00:00 Intro | Why 3D printed bone has not reached patients yet

02:08 Meet Monica Wellejus and Ossiform

05:41 How Ossiform prints bone substitutes using β-TCP ceramics

10:12 The long road to FDA clearance and U.S. market entry

14:03 Why Ossiform moved away from personalized implants

18:26 Listening to surgeons changed everything

23:47 Flatfoot reconstruction and Ossiform’s first clinical products

30:18 Fundraising, commercialization, and building a MedTech startup

38: 54 The hidden decision-makers in healthcare adoption

46:31 The future of bone regeneration, AI, and point-of-care manufacturing


Show notes: https://3dheals.com/episode-117-monica-wellejus-the-road-to-3d-printed-bone/
YouTube link:  https://youtu.be/E8t35WzV7Eg?si=QH-XHfJDwihvqv6n

Transcript

Welcome And Why 3D Printed Bone

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi there, welcome to the Lattice episode 117. Ever since 3D Heel's inception in 2017, 3D biofabricated bone replacement has been a recurring theme in our virtual events, startup pitches, and private conversations. With thousands of publications to date and close to a dozen biofabrication startups in the space, just how soon can patients actually access this? Today, I spoke with Monica Wilhis, the chief commercial officer of Osaform, previously known as Particle 3D. We discussed how her company is working to commercialize the first 3D printed reservable bone substitute to the US market. Enjoy. Please listen to the disclaimer at the end of this podcast. Monica, good to see you again. I think you were just in our webinar very recently presenting Osiform, but I think many still want to know just a little bit more about the company and about your own personal journey. I read your interview with us. It's really inspiring and fascinating, but I don't think many people actually dig that far to read the written interview, so I might as well just do this podcast and learn more. Now, first of all, tell us a little bit about Osiform so we have a

What Ossiform Builds And Sells

SPEAKER_01 1:20

context.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, thank you so much for inviting me, uh Jenny. I'm glad that I'm able to contribute just a little bit to your amazing uh platform that is uh 3D Heals. Uh but yeah, I'm the CCO of Osiform. We are a British-Danish medtech company that develops 3D printed bioactive bone substitutes with an aim to solve the problems of inconsistency in bone healing outcomes and permanent foreign body implantation by providing these reliable structural ceramics that are 3D printed to allow orthopedic surgeons to reconstruct and heal their patients without struggling with poor and variable graft quality or the patient concerns and pain that often come with permanent hardware. So that's the that's the goal.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Fantastic. Ever since I founded 3D Hills almost 10 years ago, 3D printed bone has always been uh around. But different companies and different people are working on the subjects. Like you said, many people have published papers in this subject, but still, as we will see soon, this is still a journey. We are close, but not there yet. Now, before we dig into the technology side of things, I just want to learn a little bit more about your origin. Now, did you grow up to want to heal people's bone?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Not at all. It didn't really cross my mind. Yeah, I I do not have a technical background. So it was a bit of a coincidence. I have a background in um business language and culture. I worked part-time in social healthcare when I was younger and got an interest in the healthcare space. And doing my studies, I then discovered that we had this amazing company called Particle 3D back then in the city where I live and where I studied. And I thought that sounds amazing. So I applied for a job and I got it and still working there and very happy about that.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So you were the marketing director, right, when you got hired uh to Particle 3D and now ASA form. Um, but then now you're the chief commercial officer. Isn't it usually the other way around? Is you first have a chief commercial officer and then marketing and sales?

SPEAKER_00 3:48

Yeah, I I I think the moving into the CCO role for me was a natural progression as the company matured to another level of commercial readiness. Because yeah, we have been doing sales and marketing for many years because we launched this research line of products before uh before or in the process of getting our medical devices to market. So we have been doing a lot, but but but now we are at a whole new stage where we are planning to go into the US market.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, okay. Well, that's a good segue into the company and technology. So, what is the fundamental technology behind Osoform?

SPEAKER_00 4:32

So our technology is based on beta tricalcium phosphate, which is a ceramic powder that has been used clinically for the past 40 years, but primarily in non-structural forms like paste and granules. And we take the powder and mix it with fatty acid, which allows us to print with it. So we extrude

Monica’s Path Into Medtech

SPEAKER_00 4:55

it and print all kinds of bone substitutes. And when they have been printed, we then burn off the fatty acid again through sintering, and that leaves this pure ceramic part. And so beyond the shape that we can obviously leverage the 3D printing technology to print different shapes, we can also control the structure with dense parts and more porous parts to match the needs of the indication. And you say you now have a product. Are you generating revenue from these products? We do have a modest uh revenue from our research line. It's for research use only. We we launched these um disks or scaffolds that are bone mimicking 3D cell culture systems for bone researchers.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

And so does that mean you know every bone researcher in the world? Unfortunately not. I would love to, but I I don't. I know quite a few around Europe and one in South America and a couple in the US, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So what are the terms and conditions to be able to use your scaffold? Let's say I'm the researcher somewhere listening to this podcast. How do I get a piece of this?

SPEAKER_00 6:09

Well, you can reach out to us, go to our website and and reach out to us. If if you're based in the US, we have a lovely US distributor. Um so yeah, there are a few different options, but we are really working to make our technology accessible and available in different areas through this research line. So we're more than happy to you know discuss research collaborations, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:40

So this this research line is already a solid printed form, is already the final form. It does not need to be sinistered or how do you say this? Century, no centering needed afterwards, right? It's already a final disc that's hard. Okay, so you can ship basically directly from Denmark to anywhere. Now, your second product is even more exciting, but is not really on the market yet. Why don't you tell us a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

Yeah, so we are we the the company was started with an aim to supply these bone substitutes to help uh patients that have bone defects, uh, for example, uh bone defects deriving from traumatic injury or disease, or that's that that that was the goal of of the company right from the beginning. But it is a a long process of getting medical devices to market. It's a class three implantable device in Europe and it's a class two risk device in the US, and therefore we chose to to move toward the US market first, and now we are anticipating submitting our 510K

Beta-TCP Printing And Bioactive Design

SPEAKER_00 7:55

within the next couple of months, and hopefully we'll get the clearance to be able to sell these first orthopedic bone substitutes, and they are for uh foot deformity correction.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

I guess for the clarification, yeah. Now we have a lot of implants. We have titanium implants, we have peak implants, we have sometimes PCL implants that I heard uh people doing soft tissue reconstructions. Why do we need another implant with ceramic base?

SPEAKER_00 8:25

Yeah, it's a good question because there are a lot of solutions out there. Titanium, we can start there. It's strong and it's great at many things, but it's biologically passive. It stays in the body permanently and it's much harder than bone. And therefore, there are some long-term risks that come with that, including risks of tissue damage and uh inflammation. We also have other options like hydroxyapatite-based solutions, which are bioactive but resolve very slowly, sometimes incompletely. And with beta-tricalcium phosphate that we use, we can hit the balance supporting bone in growth while also getting replaced and really letting the the defect regenerate to its its former composition.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Mm-hmm. And your implant, it sounds like is mostly non-low-bearing, uh bony defect is the best. Yeah, that's right. Now, you you mentioned bioabsorption. How long does it take to to absorb the implant? Is it ever, I mean, is it ever gonna be completely absorbed at some point?

SPEAKER_00 9:38

Yes, it it would be. We we do not have any clinical data yet, but based on preclinical studies, this is what we've seen. And the resorption rate or the time to complete resorption and remodeling into natural bone that would depend on patient conditions like age, comorbidities, and things like that. But it's uh what we've seen, for example, in our pig mandible study, is that it was almost completely resorbed and remodeled into new native bone in six months?

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Wow, that's really fast. That's faster than I thought. That's faster than some of the PCL that I knew polymers. Yeah. And then, okay, so I know that you have this fatty acid mixed with TCP. Did you tinkering with the concentration of these to finally reach optimal? Or I mean do you have like a variety of solutions by different mixture of these, or just like one type of concentration that will that's the best that you pick? You know, let's say someone who has diabetes or or different kind of biological needs, like do you or different body parts, like did you guys play around with these different concentrations?

SPEAKER_00 10:57

So we we do not have different concentrations, like the material formulation is the same every time, but we do adapt um the structure accordingly.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Printing process. Yeah. Got it. The design.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Exactly. The design, and and it's not only the shape, it can also be other factors that you can modify to match the demands of of the specific indications. So so that's really what we specialize in at Aussieform, leveraging the 3D printing technology uh for that.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

So I'm assuming right now you're not really doing completely customized or personalized implants yet. Is this something that you guys thought about?

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yes, uh, we have thought about that, and and it's really what we aimed to do uh when the company first started, but quickly found out that in 95% of cases this is not what the surgeons want or need. They want something they can grab grab off the shelf. And uh it's it's just too time consuming as it is today. I think that with AI and everything that's happening right now, that could make patient-specific solutions more available and less costly. But until now, it's really been a limitation that if you design a file, you need to get it approved by a surgeon that may have some changes to it, send it back, and then all of a sudden you've spent several weeks on a design, and then you have to print it and ship it. So it there are still still some challenges in that space.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, in the 3D com printing community, there are a lot of people who are very enthusiastic about personalized implants, and I understand why, because it does seem very accessible because of 3D printing. How long did it take you guys to realize this is really not commercially feasible? And what was the struggle like? I mean, was there like people throwing cakes at each other, arguing one way or another?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

No, not not at all, actually. Um it did take some time, but it was really when we started expanding our discussions with the surgeons, the end users, that we found out that we had to pivot.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

And that's uh I think around um twenty it was around twenty-two that we that we decided that this is what we what year was it 2018 was the funding of the company?

SPEAKER_00 13:48

Yes, it it was actually founded in in 2017, but in the first year it was only our founders that were doing some early validation and and trying to raise the seed found seed round, and then they hired our CEO in 2019 and really started expanding operations at at that point.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Okay, and then you said you guys realized that you should pivot in 2020.

Why Off-The-Shelf Beats Custom

SPEAKER_01 14:15

22, you said.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, I think it was around that time that we had we we started to have a lot of conversations with with surgeons. We also had an initial focus on oral maxillofacial surgery, which made sense at the time, but yeah, as our conversations with surgeons expanded, it became clear that the broader and commercial opportunity were in orthopedics. Uh there was simply a better product market fit and a greater need for a solution like ours.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

And when you say many conversations, how many are we talking about? And how did you realize you need to start from a craniofacial surgeon down to the foot surgeon? I mean, they're pretty far apart.

SPEAKER_00 15:03

They are. Well, we we started getting a lot of requests from orthopedic surgeons actually that reached out to us because they were interested in what we were doing. Okay. And I think we and and we also attended conferences where we got into these conversations and really quickly were pointed towards many different indications, like have you looked into this? What about this? I really need something for that. And that you could just feel another level of excitement, and you could feel that need for these very large patient populations within these different orthopedic areas.

SPEAKER_01 15:44

So it does you you do have to listen very carefully to the market. It's basically market reaching out to you. Now, of all these ideas that you heard during that period of time when you're trying to focus, what are some of the crazy ideas that you guys passed on? I just want to listen.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Something um I think there is such a great interest in finding solutions that can replace some of all the metal that that surgeons still rely on. Right. Which is a lot, actually. A lot of them. It it is a lot, and and they know that there are so many risks associated with it. If you get a joint replacement early in your life, you you may need to get another one later in life. And and you you see sometimes, you know, bone loss and stress shielding because the metal is so much harder than than the bone. And while it would be amazing to be able to provide a solution like ours for that, that could completely regenerate into natural bone, it's not feasible to use bioceramics for very large indications because it it's not as strong at all as titanium is, for example. So it would never replace like joint uh prosthesis or something like that. And maybe that's some of the the ideas that we have um maybe discussed with with some people, and and we also uh hear a lot from patients that that need better solutions and ask us if if we can help them. And and unfortunately, sometimes you you just have to say that that's not realistic.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Mm-hmm. I know. I you're not the first one who tell me about patients reaching out to startups wanting solutions. I mean, we sometimes get that too, and it's kind of hard to tell them directly. But you have to, and because they need to know the reality, but it's kind of hard to to have that kind of conversation.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

It is very hard because you often hear very personal stories uh from people that have uh we've had people that have shared with us their entire history of, you know, medical visits that have not gone as they would like and uh there are ex complications that they've experienced and and it's very hard to hear and it's very hard when you cannot help them. But uh hopefully we will be able to help uh a lot of patients very soon.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Absolutely. Now, have you thought about dental application? That seems small enough to print it. Have you thought about that market? I'm surprised that you're not in that market.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah, it's not something that we uh early on in when we considered the oral maxillofacial indications we did, but um as we moved away from that, we also moved away from dental.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

I see. So how did you uh eventually so basically did you collect a large amount of data to see which medical vertical has the biggest market? I mean, what would was that conversation like to really just hone down the foot part of the entire orthopedics industry?

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Yeah. I would say this this decision was not based on where the largest market was, but where we believed the strongest uh product market fit was need from surgeons and where we believed that that our technology has a high potential to benefit patients. We've always done what we believe is best in terms of our technology's potential for our company and obviously also for our investors. But yeah, foot surgery was just, it seemed like the ideal place to start because we we had some surgeons that were really requesting this solution and are now waiting to get the opportunity to use it.

SPEAKER_01 19:48

And what exactly does this implant look like in terms of the what part of the foot or ankle does it support?

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yeah, so the first uh two products are wedges. It's called a cotton wedge and an Evans wedge, and the first one is both of them are for flat foot deformity correction. And the the first one is placed in the cuneiform bone, which is part of the forefoot, and the other one is part of the hind foot. It's an incision made in the heel bone where you cut out uh this wedge, place the wedge in the bone to correct an outward splaying foot or yeah, flat foot.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

And how are people correcting these right now, traditionally?

SPEAKER_00 20:36

They use either allograft, donor bone, or metal wedges.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Okay, so uh allograft

Pivot To Orthopedics And Real Demand

SPEAKER_01 20:45

is from the patient's own body, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:47

That's actually from a donor.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

From a donor, sorry, I always forget which one autologous is from the patient itself. Yes. Okay, so you have to get somebody else's bone getting your body.

SPEAKER_00 21:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

There are some patients that don't like the thought of that, but I don't think that's the m a major issue, but it's um inherently variable because it's depending on the quality of the donor's bone, and it's also heavily processed when it you know gets to be implanted in an in another patient. So but they are very, very widely used and also great for many things, but we just uh offer a synthetic, more consistent alternative that can provide a compelling middle ground between the allograft and and the permanent metal options.

SPEAKER_01 21:49

Is this a fairly small or medium sized market? Or is uh what what is the market size for this?

SPEAKER_00 21:57

Well, it's uh it is uh a relative relatively large market. I think the total well if we just go beyond those two two procedures, I think it's it's around the initial target market is around a hundred thousand procedures in the US annually. Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I did not know we have so many flat feet and people need surgery.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Actually it's uh yeah it's because you think of flat feet as something you're born with, right? Or some people are born with but actually a lot of people get collapsing flat foot deformities when they are older like in middle aged patients especially if pace some patients that are you know with age and with increased BMI there there are some risks of your feet flattening and it can be very painful. So yeah it's it's not some it's not only flat foot deformities that children are born with it's also something you acquire in in adulthood.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

So of all these uh you know the the technology invention to iterations to now finally clarify the focus of commercialization you must have had a lot of challenges I mean I can just name a few one is fundraising. I I I saw your CEO Thea in SF quite a few times fundraising during JP Morgan previously and you were probably with her but I just didn't see you during those times and two is regulation the FDA regulation and and EU and then three is to you know talk to the surgeons so that they can be open to user you want to just unpack some of these challenges what what do you tackle first of all these problems?

SPEAKER_00 23:47

Yeah it's a it's a difficult question because they are all critical you know in in early fundraising it's all about vision and credibility you're asking investors to believe in the scientific uh scientific foundation and the vision and the team's ability to to execute in our situation I do believe it's been really great that we have a very experienced CEO that has done this multiple times before.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

But yeah I think of of course that is difficult but the adoption part is often underestimated I think the market adoption part so you ideally you don't want to change surgeon behavior. You want your solution to fit into their existing workflows or enhance them. And again convincing the surgeon or the end user is not enough especially in today's market it's not enough at all beyond your work with the regulatory authorities and the end user you must also know that administrative decision makers within decis within institutions like hospitals are also very important yeah in the adoption decisions. So yeah but money is of course fundamental for you to move forward on a regulatory path but you also need a regulatory strategy to raise money and you need some voice of customer work. So it's it's it's all very critical.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Well um let's unpack this adoption part because I think this is like a big bottleneck for a lot of new devices. I mean you're you're definitely new new material new process new implant I know that some surgeons reach out to you first it sounds like there is a market demand. Obviously those people who reach out to you probably are more open to use your implant but that shouldn't be all that surgeons how do you get the other surgeons who are not aware of you be aware and be open to use your new device.

SPEAKER_00 25:57

Yeah it is very very it can be very challenging we were fortunate that some reach out to us but there are certainly also a lot of the people that we collaborate with today that did not reach out to us we we contacted them and I found that relationships are critical and of course you need to be very clear in in the value that you're bringing and your communication to make sure that it resonates with them. So getting in touch with them is probably the most difficult part because these people are so incredibly busy and they are in the OR all day or they are seeing patients all day. So it is very difficult. And I think our best uh strategy has been to you know use the relationships you have and your network to get in touch with them and then conferences.

SPEAKER_01 26:58

Well you're located in Europe so maybe it's easier for you to say reach out some Danish surgeons because it's right around the corner and European doctors. But how do you expand to the US market which is further out and prob probably more important I mean in terms of the market cap.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yeah we we did uh choose to go for the US market first so our priority has been the US market right from the beginning. So actually the far majority of all the collaborators we have and the physician champions they are US based and I think there may be some cultural differences and some differences in the market I think it's sometimes easier to get Americans excited about new technology than Europeans. So I I've actually found that a little bit easier in the US not necessarily

Flatfoot Wedges And Market Reality

SPEAKER_00 27:55

getting in contact with them but when you are in contact with them getting them interested and and engaged in new technology I think that's easier in the US Yeah I think fundraising is the same way.

SPEAKER_01 28:09

I don't know if you know who I mean I don't know if you interact with your investors on a regular basis. But I think most of our investors your investors in Europe right or British or UK? Yeah they are British primarily Well imagine you try to raise money in the US Yeah that is what we want to do next time and uh so you're going through a 510K FDA clearance right you say it's gonna get cleared this year at the end of this year?

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Yeah that's that that's what we expect are you are you planning any clinical trials or inhuman studies post market or something like that yes we are entering the market without any clinical data already so that's a key priority for us as we enter the market that we will gather real world evidence at our first US clinical sites and in addition to that we are also planning to set up clinical investigations internationally from 2027. Both with an eye to further support adoption activities but also to pursue the CE mark in Europe. Yeah we do have several other products in the pipeline that I unfortunately cannot speak too much about because it's still um confidential but we are looking into other indications as well and working with surgeons on on developing those. So yeah the foot surgery market is a place to start but uh we we do in the years to come believe that we will be able to support many more physicians in different areas of of orthopedic surgery including trauma as well.

SPEAKER_01 29:59

Trauma that that requires a very short turnaround time.

SPEAKER_00 30:03

Yeah but you also have some cases of non-acute trauma but yeah that there are both both both options and you mentioned that your implant is really not good for large bone defect have you but you I think I saw some blogs on your website that says talks about the large bone defects and how it can be eventually that problem can be solved.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Do you anticipate either you guys or someone else in your same space will do that in the next couple years? I'm just kind of since I'm not you know as current as you are in terms of what the industry is like right now.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah I guess everything is is possible and you see new material developments all all the time so I I would be surprised if we wouldn't see developments in in that space as well within the next 10 20 years. But it is definitely an area that that could use some some innovation at least on the material side and you know there are so many people that get joint replacements both hips, knees and and shoulders so it is very interesting space.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Absolutely so now uh is the forecast time for Osiform in the next let's just say three five ten years so three mean more recent more near term and then 10 is like very futuristic forecast. Where do you see Osiform in the next couple years?

SPEAKER_00 31:35

In the next couple of years I see us expanding our footprint in the US and literally footprint. Yeah you're right and really yeah establishing osiform boots on the ground. That's right yeah and then yeah you know really going into our first clinical use cases and clinical investigations that's going to be huge. Yeah and um and expensive I would say probably also exp expensive yes for sure when we look uh further out into the future we are also moving from orthopedics and into some spine applications that is the the plan and another area of RD activity that we are prioritizing is potential yeah point of care printing in the future as we've seen in the dental industry we imagine that more so more hospitals could eventually produce implants locally to reduce waiting time and logistics complexity like we talked about a little bit earlier that now also with AI that customization could become routine rather than an exceptional thing to to give access to

Adoption Hurdles Beyond The Surgeon

SPEAKER_00 32:55

these very innovative solutions for more hospitals, more surgeons and more patients Do you see you're gonna do something in EU market as well?

SPEAKER_01 33:05

I know that right now you're focusing on the US first is EU market also kind of on the to-do list it is yeah we are uh setting these clinical investigations up also to pursue approval under the MDR in Europe so we will head for for the European market next and ultimately also outside of Europe and and the US Well let me know if you need some help with patient enrollment enrollment I can give you a shout out always when you are ready. Yeah and so as a as an industry for 3D printing for bone what do you see the industry is gonna go in the near term or longer term? For a for a bone printing I know so far I've seen like only scaff scaffolds it was just inorganic mixtures. I haven't seen a whole lot of I mean I guess it's really hard and expensive to commercialize with some kind of cellular components to it.

SPEAKER_00 34:08

Yeah that that could evolve uh but I think it's also incredibly challenging in terms of regulation which is a big hindrance right now like i if you also if you go into combination products or anything and and you have a PMA risk profile it's not impossible at all but it is uh of course a a hindrance. Yeah absolutely I I think that there's no doubt that more customization uh will happen in the future and yeah perhaps also more combination products with printed bone that includes it could also be pharmaceuticals or like you said cells or other materials that can be incorporated into these more bone like materials.

SPEAKER_01 35:05

So you mentioned that you were not a technical person now you're actually the chief commercial officer for a a totally technical startup do you have any advice for people who are you know didn't go in school for technical majors and how can they transition to work for a tech startup?

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Yeah I would say do not be intimidated by the science your value is in translation strategy and execution so and and don't be afraid to ask questions do ask questions until things are clear because it can actually also be a a real value that you force this clarity into into the company whether that be founders engineers scientists to really communicate what what the technology is and what it can do.

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yeah so don't don't be afraid of it even though it it might sound really complex absolutely I also like the fact that you talk about clarity actually in one of my other interviews the uh founder said something that I also agree with it says clarity is kindness so the more clear you are the better it is to your team so I absolutely are on board with that.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Also I see you in all kinds of conferences like all the time especially on social media you were just in the US going through a a program right yeah you're right I was in Tennessee and that was a great opportunity to visit a bunch of health systems and hospitals uh in Nashville in Memphis and uh yeah I'm part of this we are part of uh this ABHI US accelerator program so that that's why I was there and also going to the East Coast and to Texas later in the year.

SPEAKER_01 36:52

Wow for the same program yes yeah so what was your experience talking to the US healthcare systems?

SPEAKER_00 36:59

There were so many great learnings there I think it's um interesting to get to speak with all these administrative decision makers that's what this trip was really about meeting with the CFOs uh chief innovation officers uh supply chain management and they bring another perspective to new device adoption they are all US hospitals are under severe financial pressures at the moment so they really need to think about you know return of investment if they consider deploying new technology. So that was really interesting to hear their point of view about how how they think about that and also that it's not just your return of investment but it's also your speed or how fast can you really make an impact or a change for the organization because everything is changing so rapidly right now.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

And did I mean regarding your aim plans specifically did you hear anything from these guys to in terms of their thought that you think you could either change or implement or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 38:15

No, I think we got some some really great feedback also that we are doing the right things and being proactive about thinking not only about what the the surgeons need but also what these other stakeholders need to see. It's also you know reimbursement reimbursement guides and support to make sure that claims run smoothly through their systems and

What’s Next: Trials, Spine, Point Of Care

SPEAKER_00 38:40

really just highlighting the value to them. Yeah no I'm I'm glad that you're talking to these people honestly I did not know until this episode when I'm talking to you now now I'm gonna go do some research and see what I can learn about these folks because it it sounds like a key component to getting a device accepted into the market it is so so many hospitals now I think it's most medium and and large hospitals that have value analysis committees that consist of of different stakeholders that are both clinical financial supply chain that make decisions about new products and technologies so it's it's definitely crucial but it and it also varies from institution to institution. It's it's different to sell into an ambulatory surgery center than uh a large health system but nevertheless there are different stakeholders that you must prepare to to tailor your message to and not all stakeholders value your product the same or you know appreciate the same things. Absolutely now it sounds like you're almost never in Denmark Monica Fortunately I am also uh in Denmark a lot I enjoy traveling to the States and I I I I like that I get the opportunity to do that but I'm also with our team here in Denmark a lot of the time obviously but still you're probably one of the most energetic persons I know I mean even just just listening to what trips you have coming up uh it kind of just like I was like I'm not I'm not sure I can do that.

SPEAKER_01 40:23

How do you how do you unwind or relax to I guess maybe you're energized by all these travels so how do you how do you unpack or somehow separate yourself from work?

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah I I will say on the way over there and while I'm in the US I am very energetic but when I I get home I'm I'm super tired and jet lagged maybe because I I go for a week in the US with not that much sleep. But yeah I I for example on my trip to Tennessee and back to Denmark from Tennessee I watched this amazing series called The Pit.

SPEAKER_01 41:05

I don't know if you've that's that's really I love that show.

SPEAKER_00 41:08

I I'm only on episode three but I love that show already it is a very very good series so yeah I I like to watch series and and and movies and uh when I find a good series on the plane that's like a jackpot because then it gets a little more more fun and manageable to sit in a plane for eight hours. That's something I I watched recently and and really really enjoyed.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

And do you have how do you get yourself up up to date uh with with everything either the technology, the healthcare inf news like how do you feed your updates?

SPEAKER_00 41:49

I listen

How Monica Unwinds And Connects

SPEAKER_00 41:50

to a lot of podcasts both to consume news but also with work. For example I like a podcast by Omar Kateb called State of of Mythtech where I follow industry trends and and also um read a lot on on LinkedIn there are so many great content creators on there now I think then is great. Yeah yeah do you have any Danish podcasts that you listen to? We have one that is called Gen Start which is a daily podcast that provides an in-depth interview about a topic that is interesting at the moment it can be anything more or less but yeah it's it's something I listen to almost daily cool now for um one is how do the listeners get in touch with you number one number two is who do you want to connect to throughout podcast well if uh if there are any researchers out there interested in any bone related stuff please do feel free to reach out you can find me on LinkedIn and please feel free to to connect on there or you can also message me on via email my email is mw atform.com that's pretty conventional I can also add that email in our show notes if you don't mind you're welcome to okay well thank you Monica for spending the time with us I learned a lot about Autop and I really look forward to what's going to happen to the company soon.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Thank you this podcast is for educational and informational purposes only the views expressed do not constitute medical or financial advice. The technologies and procedures discussed may not be commercially available or suitable for every case. Always consult with a licensed professional