How OSSTEC Uses Alpha Sophia to Identify Key Opinion Leaders in the U.S. Market from Abroad
Introduction
OSSTEC, an orthopedic startup based on 10 years of research at Imperial College London, is transforming joint replacement surgery with innovative, 3D-printed knee implants designed for long-term bone fixation and healing. As they looked to enter the U.S. market, OSSTEC faced challenges in navigating unfamiliar market dynamics, identifying Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs), and understanding how to position their product effectively. These hurdles are common for startups entering foreign markets with breakthrough innovations.
How does a startup with great innovation answer these questions in an unfamiliar market?
To stay competitive and accelerate product development, OSSTEC needed to engage influential surgeons, gain deep market insights, and streamline its development process. By partnering with Alpha Sophia, OSSTEC addressed these pain points, ultimately achieving faster market entry and strategic growth.
Key Takeaways
- Targeted KOL Identification and Engagement: OSSTEC used Alpha Sophia to identify the right Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) at scale, leveraging insights from metrics like CPT and HCPCs billing data, clinical expertise, and research contributions. This enabled personalized outreach, ensuring meaningful engagement with top surgeons.
- Competitive Differentiation: Alpha Sophia’s analysis, including insights from Open Payments data (Physician Payments Sunshine Act), helped OSSTEC benchmark competitor strategies, refine its approach, and emphasize the unique, long-term benefits of its cementless implants in the U.S. market.
- Faster, Insight-Driven Product & Commercial Development: By integrating diverse, real-time feedback from diverse clinical experts, OSSTEC reduced development time and positioned itself for a faster, more effective market launch. This included engagement with strategic partners.
Barriers to Growth
In the rapidly evolving orthopedic space, OSSTEC encountered three major challenges:
- Navigating KOL Identification: Given the vast size of the US of orthopaedic surgery market, OSSTEC needed a strategic approach to pinpoint the most influential and relevant KOLs. Critical factors included procedure volume (CPT and HCPCs billing), surgical expertise, and professional recognition through research contributions and publication records.
- Incorporating Diverse Clinical Perspectives: Surgeon opinions vary significantly depending on clinical background,clinical affiliations, geographic region, and professional relationships. OSSTEC needed a way to seamlessly integrate this diversity into its product development while maintaining efficiency.
- Gaining a Competitive Edge: With established players dominating the orthopaedic implant market, OSSTEC faced the added challenge of entering a new, unfamiliar market. To successfully compete, they needed a clear understanding of how competitors structured their KOL engagement and surgeon networks in the U.S. market. Gaining these insights was critical for refining their strategy and differentiating their cementless implants.
How Alpha Sophia enabled OSSTEC to make sense of the US market:
- Identifying the Right KOLs at Scale: With Alpha Sophia’s robust profiling tools, OSSTEC was able to efficiently identify a large pool of surgeons who aligned with their product goals. By analyzing key metrics such as procedure volume, clinical focus, and startup experience, OSSTEC pinpointed the most influential KOLs relevant to their innovative knee implants.
- Personalized Outreach Based on Comprehensive Profiles: Once the right KOLs were identified, Alpha Sophia’s detailed Healthcare Provider (HCP) profiling enabled OSSTEC to gain a comprehensive understanding of each surgeon’s professional background, licensures, and research contributions. This real-time information allowed OSSTEC to engage these KOLs in a personalized and targeted manner, ensuring meaningful feedback that aligned with real-world clinical needs—without delaying the development timeline.
- Market Intelligence and Competitive Benchmarking: Alpha Sophia enabled OSSTEC to leverage Open Payments data (Physician Payments Sunshine Act) to analyze competitor relationships with surgeons by filtering key metrics like manufacturer, payment type, and associated products. These insights helped OSSTEC benchmark against competitors, refine KOL outreach, and strategically position their cementless implants for stronger market entry.
Results That Matter
With Alpha Sophia’s support, OSSTEC achieved these transformative outcomes:
- Expedited Product Development: OSSTEC reduced development timelines by seamlessly integrating real-time feedback from a diverse group of clinical practitioners.
- Enhanced Market Readiness: Through targeted KOL engagement and competitive benchmarking, OSSTEC refined its market approach, preparing for a faster, more impactful launch.
- Stronger Competitive Intelligence: OSSTEC utilized the diverse insights from Alpha Sophia to strengthen their own relative positioning and ensure early buy-in from leading clinical experts.
Conclusion
By leveraging Alpha Sophia’s powerful data-driven solutions, OSSTEC successfully navigated the complexities of KOL engagement, competitive differentiation, and accelerated product development. The strategic insights provided by Alpha Sophia not only streamlined OSSTEC’s processes but also positioned the company for long-term success as a leader in orthopedic innovation.
Struggling to find KOLs in new markets?
