Revolutionizing Sales Operations and Driving Commercial Excellence at Intrinsic Therapeutics

Intrinsic Therapeutics has a specialized spinal product, Barricade, which is designed to close the large hole left after a discectomy, significantly reducing the chance of reherniation. Although it’s the only FDA-approved product of its kind, Intrinsic had trouble convincing experienced surgeons that their device led to better patient outcomes.

Ralph Beentjes, Vice President, Sales Operations and Customer Relations at Intrinsic, knew that if he could find spinal surgeons that were often early adopters of new technology and convince them to use Barricade, those surgeons could help drive adoption among their peers. But he faced a challenge - how do you know which surgeons are early adopters and key opinion leaders?

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Existing data sets provided limited information and took a long time to analyze

Intrinsic’s sales team had ample experience in the spinal market, but no familiarity with the surgeons who performed discectomies, as they hadn’t previously sold into those procedures. Beentjes partnered with various data vendors to understand which surgeons had the highest discectomy volume, but these solutions actually created more issues than they solved.

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Intrinsic needed to understand the discectomy surgery market because they hadn’t previously sold into those procedures, but struggled to find accurate, usable data.

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• Data was inaccurate: Some of the formulas used to extrapolate small data sets into usable guidance resulted in extreme numbers, leading sales reps to distrust the data.
• Manual data set building: Beentjes could request procedure volumes by code from one vendor, but it would then take the vendor six to eight weeks to manually assemble and deliver that data set. And if he wanted to later add additional codes, it took even longer – and cost more.
• Time-consuming data analysis: These data sets were provided in spreadsheets - not interactive platforms - and the sales team didn’t have access to it. This forced Beentjes’ operations team to laboriously analyze the data and collate it into something the sales team could use. This took so much time that it essentially reduced the operations team into an administrative support function for sales.
• Hard to drive action with static data: This data also needed to be manually loaded into Intrinsic’s CRM platform, which created another significant burden. It also had to be manually mapped to territories, making any realignments very complicated -- sometimes taking up to two hours for a single territory change.

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“AcuityMD allowed us to revolutionize our targeting. It was quite amazing.”

Ralph Beentjes - VP, Sales Operations & Customer Relations - Intrinsic Therapeutics

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Intrinsic needed reliable, comprehensive, and accessible data

With all of the time the operations team was spending simply collating and manipulating static data sets, they didn’t have the bandwidth to create a comprehensive strategy for identifying early adopters, or a playbook for converting them to Barricade. “We were essentially a support function only. We didn’t have time to do anything else. We wanted to change that,” Beentjes observed.

Beentjes knew that he needed a better solution, and after a demo he was immediately convinced that AcuityMD would address Intrinsic’s challenges. The key differentiators were:

• Quick access to procedure codes: Procedure codes could be searched and pulled into a targeting list in just minutes, instead of weeks.
• Comprehensive data: Not only was AcuityMD’s data more accurate and timely, it included robust commercial payer data, which was essential for Intrinsic’s market access strategy.
• Integrated territory mapping: The platform included territory mapping capabilities, eliminating the need for external spreadsheets and manual work. Potential changes could be modeled in just a few clicks instead of hours of work in a spreadsheet. This also allowed Intrinsic to strategically hire new resources based on territories.
• Direct rep access: Crucially, AcuityMD gave the sales reps direct access to the data. This was a major shift from previous systems where data was given to a few gatekeepers.

Even with one year remaining on their existing data vendor contract, Beentjes brought AcuityMD on board. “AcuityMD allowed us to revolutionize our targeting. It was quite amazing,” he exclaimed.

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Sales operations shifted from a support function into a strategic partner

With this newfound efficiency, the sales operations moved away from being a support function to become a strategic partner to sales. Beentjes now had the data, and more importantly the time, he needed to completely rethink Intrinsic’s go-to-market strategy.

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“We now have time to develop creative strategies and move away from being a support function.”

Ralph Beentjes - VP, Sales Operations & Customer Relations - Intrinsic Therapeutics

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To identify potential early adopters, Beentjes examined Intrinsic’s current customer base and created a sophisticated power ranking tool that would identify commonalities among customers, weighing those factors by the impact they had on a sale. Beyond simple procedure volume, Beentjes incorporated data such as surgeries that took longer than others, surgeons who were likely open to serving as key opinion leaders, surgeons performing the majority of procedures at a given facility, and more.

This powerful ranking data, built on accurate procedure volumes, successfully identified surgeons who seemed like a good match for Barricade, many of which weren’t on Intrinsic’s initial priority list. The impact was huge. 75% of their business began coming from surgeons who matched power ranking criteria. This was a game-changer for their targeting and prioritization.

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75% of new business came from surgeons identified by power ranking data.

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Beyond strategically targeting surgeons, Beentjes also used the payer data in AcuityMD to understand reimbursement differences in various sites of care, allowing reps to prioritize facilities by the potential ROI for Intrinsic.

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Data, workflows, and repeatable strategies create commercial excellence

The shift to AcuityMD also had a profound impact on the sales team. Providing reps with direct access to trusted data in an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly platform was critical. Reps regularly use AcuityMD to prioritize their targets and develop tactics to execute on the strategies created by the operations team. These strategies are easily accessible in AcuityMD, so reps can pick and choose as they need to set up their weekly plans.

Looking ahead, Beentjes envisions a future where market data, opportunity tracking, contracting, and territory alignment are all integrated into a single workflow on AcuityMD. This would further streamline processes for both sales operations and the sales team, making it even easier to drive success. “What I like about AcuityMD is they listen well and listen fast. It’s just a pleasure to work with this company. They really take the voice of the customer seriously,” Beentjes noted.

As Beentjes knows, it’s not just data - it’s what you can do with it. AcuityMD gave Intrinsic not just comprehensive data, but simple workflows that gave sales operations back hours each week. That enabled them to transform their sales operations, build a repeatable and scalable playbook, and drive commercial excellence.

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