"Brown Bag" With US VP of Sales for BONESUPPORT , Aaron Lepper!

(upbeat music) Greetings, fellow solicitors and surgeons, welcome to the very first installment of Brown Bag this new year, Overhill Overdale, Device Nation, hits the dusty trail, looking for products and services that add value to your bag, your OR theater, and we are so excited to bring you a product that brings that word value in 128 point font bold and italicized for good measure with bone support VP of sales, Aaron Lepper, if only this first name was Jeff. Now that would be something us 80s music fans could all rally around, right? Well no matter what genre of music you like, one thing we can all rally around is that vexatious word and affection, the numbers really haven't moved that much, it's by the all the changes we've made over the years and we've made a lot, have it, as we all look for the fix in 2026 on the various and sundry, love that word, various and sundry issues facing us all in this space, we would be a miss, not to talk about potential solutions in the armamentarium to address just that. So without further ado, Aaron, not Jeff, Aaron Lepper, welcome to Brown Bag, sir. - Thank you, glad to be here. - Well introduce yourself, sir, would love to hear about your industry journey and tell us about your gig these days. - You got it, so I'm born and raised in Kansas City, where I still reside. Went to the Air Force Academy, served a few years, as an officer in the Air Force and out of the Air Force, I started my job as a medical device rep in Omaha, Nebraska with a company called Walter Lorenz Surgical, which over time became Zimmer, Biomed, CMF, the RASICs. Did that for about four years? After that, I moved back to KC, I spent about seven years in the enterprise software industry and then in '04, I got back into medical device as a regional manager with osteomed, selling both CMF and footnaked products. From there, I went to Biomed Microfixation, which ultimately became Zimmer, Biomed, CMF, the RASIC and served there as both a regional manager and then became director of Cardio The RASIC sales as they began to roll out their external closure product, sternal lock. From there, I went back to osteomed for a few years as a regional manager, strictly in the footnaked space and then came to Boeing Support as a regional manager, got promoted to AVP of sales for the West US and then a few years ago got promoted to VP of sales for the US and it's been a best move I've made and I made years in, we're growing like crazy so it's been a great journey. - Well, thank you for your service to our country and I've got to ask this question. And you're CMS days and I'm only asking just 'cause this happened to me once, did you ever drop one of those trays and have to find a million 1.0 millimeter screws all over the ground? - I did, I did that twice, once in a neurosurgeons office and another time in an ENT surgeons office. So I had to stay there for an hour with the pickup forcipts, picking up all those little screws. - So yes, wonderful memory. - It's a wonderful memory indeed. Well, let's go to the wonderful now. Tell us about your impressions of the product now that you're on board with them. Tell us about Boeing Support. - Yeah, so Boeing Support, based in Loon, Sweden, products we have here in the US for approval our Ceremonic Bonevoid filler, which is our standard Bonevoid filler. We also have Ceremonic G, which is in a Mysen, which got approval in May of 2022. We've been selling it since October of 2022. In Europe, they have Ceremonic V with vancomycin. We do not have Ceremonic V with vancomycin approved yet in the US, hoping to get approval for that sometime next year, but that is to be determined. Ceremonic G, that's the exciting product that we have, truly a one of a kind product. It's a synthetic bonevoid filler that is approved to deliver local antibiotics. So it is the first and only FDA authorized antibiotic eluding bone graft indicated for use in the management of bone infections. So it's composed of 60% calcium sulfate, which is the absorbable carrier, 40% hydroxyapatite, which is your macroporis osteoponductor scappled that stays behind that allows the bone to modeling to occur. And then of course, you get your safe, predictable, and effective local antibiotic elution of genomiasin as well, that stays above minimum required levels for 28 days. Great, great unique product in a one of a kind. Aaron, I sold Ceremonic many years ago as a ZB Rep, it was a great standalone product. The addition of gen just changes everything. And I want to highlight what you just said there, 28 days. That's statistically significant, right? Yes, it is. Everything else being done today is off-label. No other synthetic is approved to deliver local antibiotics. So no off-label solution can provide the elution properties or the clinical data that shows how effective that is because it's all off-label. There are different levels of antibiotics going in with different preservatives. And there's no repeatable, consistent formula that we have with Ceremonic G. Well, Aaron, one of my favorite sales reps in the world, Billy Mays, he always used to ask, where's the wow, a lot of wows with Ceremonic G, as you've shown this product around the country, what's the wow that's resonated most with customers? Well, the biggest thing is you now have one product that does two things very well. One, remodel bone. And then the other thing, of course, that it does is it's safely, predictably and effectively delivers local antibiotics. So when you look at the other things on the market, the products that typically get used off-label to deliver antibiotics, cement or calcium sulfate products, they might deliver antibiotics off-label for a short period of time. But neither of those products are great, bone remodeling vehicles. And the other products that are good bone remodeling vehicles, autograph, allegra, osteo and inductive osteogenic graphs are not good vehicles for delivering antibiotics. So now you have one product that does both things well. Well, what is that enabled? Well, that enables the single stage treatment of bone infections, which our clinical data shows. And it also enables the reasonable treatment and preservation of infected bone that is still viable and vascular. Thirdly, it eliminates many of the problems associated with off-label mixing of antibiotics, patient safety issues, unpredictable and unknown elution, a mixing and setting, inconsistencies, and of course, no clinical data supporting their effectiveness. One wow that really jumped off the page at me is the ability to deliver antibiotic behind a submitless implant in a revision scenario. That's a big one. It is. And a matter of fact, we just got our first clinical study regarding the use of Cerement G in the single stage treatment of Paraphrostatic joint infection patients out of Germany, Dr. Miller. And so this was 3.3 years of mean follow-up where they were augmenting the ass tabular cut, the femoral stem and the defects in dead space. On, like you said, the cementless femoral component. Good bony consolidation and prosthesis integration and all cases at 12 months minimum follow-up there. And at 3.3 years, 100% infection free in 20 patients. So we're excited about that. And we're starting to share that study with a lot of our surgeons that do revision arthroplasty. When I was selling the product, Aaron, it was drillable. Does the addition of gent change those handling characteristics at all? No, it's still drillable at 15 minutes as well. Cerement G is injectable. You can use it in bead form and it is drillable after 15 minutes. Well, Aaron, for many reps, the fix in 2026 is going to be additional revenue streams that don't compete with their existing book of business. Why should Cerement G be on their short list? I would summarize it in three main reasons. One, it is a true unique one of a kind product. I mean, I've never had such a product in my entire career. So it's a door opener. You're not walking in with another plate or a screw where you're talking about an extra two degrees locking angle or a 0.2 millimeter thinner plate or some other hardware feature. So it's a true door opener. It's something truly unique that will get you in front of surgeons. So it's not a commodity and it has very strong clinical data. So that's a product that you get to sell on clinical data versus simple features and advantages over competing products. Two, it's a great return on your time. Because of its unique nature and its effectiveness, it maintains a high selling price and a good commission rate. So definitely worth your time standing in the OR when you're using it in surgery. And the fact that it's synthetic and sterile package, you've got no human tissue, protocol, you have to deal with and you don't have the headaches associated with running hardware trades as well. So it's a good product from a quality life standpoint as well. Well, Aaron, I love the team that you all put together. Love the product. Love the commission rate. Close us up with a call to action. How can reps connect or learn more? See if it's a good fit for their bag and become a distributor. Yeah, the best way is you can email me at [email protected] at bonesupport.com. That's the best way. And I can get you in touch with the regional managers that would service the geography that the distributor's interested in. We will put that in the show notes. And thank you so much for coming on Brown Bag to share this amazing product with the device nation audience. I just know that you're going to have great success with this thing. It's just awesome. Sounds great. Thanks so much. It's been a pleasure. Wasn't that awesome? Thank you so much, Aaron Lepper. So appreciate you coming on and sharing your story. And this awesome solution for both reps and surgeons. We here at Device Nation have watched this product, this company for many, many years. And we give it 10 out of 10 ladies and pointers. Check it out, bonesupport.com. Let us know what you think. 2026 is going to be a breakout year for many of you listeners. We are so convinced. And we're excited to be sharing that success alongside you. The best of the best solo for it to seeing you all next time.