Read time  6 minutes

With the 2025 SMFM Annual Pregnancy Meeting taking place this week, it felt timely to share a few insights from conferences attended over the years as we built our medical device business and expanded operations into the US market.

Back in early 2020 at the SMFM meeting that year, as a business this seemed to be an inflexion point. We were gaining traction in the US and had come a long way as a small team, with no external funding, and driven by a mission to improve the safety of childbirth.

Attendance at national conferences was critical to our commercial success. We needed to meet with clinicians, face to face (of course the pandemic would change that this very same year), to share the story of why we were here and why we believed our device could have such an impact on improving outcomes for mother and baby.

With no local presence (none of our team lived in the US), these would become key opportunities to meet with end users.

Potential strategic partners and larger industry players had also taken a keen interest in our journey and were following our developments closely.

Perhaps we didn’t know the extent at the time, but efforts we made in attending these conferences over the years had created a level of noise and interest in the market - both from clinicians and industry players.

Twelve months after this annual meeting, we would be approached and eventually acquired by CooperSurgical.

In this month’s newsletter, I share a few reasons why you should include national conferences as a key component of your commercialisation strategy and why I believe this had a profound impact on the success we were able to achieve in a relatively short space of time.

Benefits of International Conferences

A key part of our US marketing strategy, as a UK based company looking to enter this market, was to attend national and regional OBGYN meetings where we could introduce our product - to clinicians who might one day end up using the device in their practice.

It was an excellent opportunity to meet with clinicians from key hospital groups nationally - we could also start collecting contact information and build our future customer database.

Here a few key reasons you should include national conferences as part of your wider commercial strategy. All are fairly straightforward. I would argue that execution on the below is what matters most.

• Direct engagement with your target market - who are the end users of your device and how can meet with them face to face? In our case, this would be healthcare providers (typically OBGYNs). We would need to articulate and demonstrate the potential clinical benefits of our device and explain how it might improve outcomes for the patient and improve the clinician’s practice. In terms of practical steps to achieve this - think well in advance of the meeting around how your booth will be set up (will it capture the attention of clinicians walking past?); the marketing materials you’ll present; how the device will be demonstrated in just a couple of minutes; any visual displays that could help (animations, videos); how you will collect contact information; and how you will be presenting your product verbally to interested clinicians.

• Opportunities to develop relationships with Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) – you should already have done your research on potential KOLs in your field that you might want to start engaging with at conferences. Simple steps are to review the attendees list, speaker slots, and workshop hosts, on topics most relevant to your product. Who are the most well published clinicians on such topics, and who might have the most impact if they were to get behind your device? A lot of these can be clarified in advance of the meeting and you should then look for ways you might connect with these individuals (to at least introduce yourself!).

• Connect with current users of your device - I’ve also found national conferences are a fantastic way to meet current users of your product and gain direct feedback from the market. Is everything going as well as you would expect? Are the utilization levels where they should be? Are there any challenges being faced? All of these will provide insight into how you might provide additional support (perhaps that department requires further education and training - a critical next step following the conference).

• Publications and Posters Presentations – perhaps a user of your product has submitted an abstract or is presenting a poster on their experience. This will undoubtedly generate interest from clinicians who might then want to visit your booth. Perhaps they want to see your device being demonstrated or meet the inventor behind it.

• Participation in hands-on workshops - look out for opportunities to demonstrate your product in a practical skills workshop that might be included on the meeting agenda. Our device was included in skills workshops that considered methods for managing an impacted fetal head. The sessions were well received, allowing an opportunity for clinicians to receive hands-on training. The workshops also built awareness that a solution was now available in the market.

• Supporting speaker opportunities - as a company, are there speaker presentations that you might be able to sponsor? For instance, a clinician might be willing to share their department’s experience of using your product, or a clinician might want to present the results of a published clinical study.

• Sharing training tools to support hospital adoption – during the pandemic, we pivoted to remote training options and developed a comprehensive online training platform. We would then use national conference opportunities at a later date to demo this platform to both current and future users of our device. These were tools that would ultimately increase utilization at the hospital level and ensure our device was being used more often in those relevant cases that presented themselves (in the end, benefiting more patients).

• Opportunities to expand your team and network - you will likely find potential hires, distribution partners, or even senior level employees who might be interested in joining your organisation. If you have plans to expand your team, conferences are an excellent opportunity to achieve this.

• Network with experts – are there specific areas of your business you might need expert support? One example might be reimbursement. Conferences can often open up conversations with various experts in the form of reimbursement or market access consultants. Ahead of the conference, consider where you might need additional support or guidance and use the conference to expand this network.

• Engaging potential strategic partners - I touched on this above and from my personal experience, conferences are an incredible opportunity to network with potential strategic partners. I believe our early engagement with national conferences (even prior to FDA clearance) led to the foundation of our relationship with the company that would eventually acquire us. Don’t underestimate the opportunity here, if an exit forms part of your future goals.

Final Reflections

Looking back now, is there anything I would have done differently?

I probably should have moved to the US which might have been more efficient, compared with travelling back and forth every month.

This would have allowed me to work more closely with our distribution partners, as well as dedicate time to our direct business.

This might have also allowed us to make direct hires in the US market earlier on (which could have sped up adoption in the market).

Perhaps we could have partnered with a national distributor – a potentially faster path to penetration of key hospital groups throughout the country.

However, my daughter was born that year and moving countries wasn't a practical option at that time.

I did learn that as a small UK medical device business we were able to find a way to successfully launch our product, prove our business model, and garner interest from strategic partners.

Finding the right partners in the US was critical to our success. We couldn't do it alone.

Ultimately, there’s always things you would do differently with the benefit of hindsight.

We were in the US market for 3 years prior to our exit and were able to make an impact in a short space of time, with a small team, and no external funding.

I now try and share some of this experience with other companies on a similar journey, experience we would have found valuable at the time but had to figure out ourselves!

I plan to be back in the US 4-5 times this year - would love to connect with founders and learn about new technologies being developed. Perhaps there's a way we can collaborate!

I appreciate you taking the time to read this month’s newsletter. Any questions, comments or feedback, feel free to email me.

Have a great weekend!

Nish Varma

[email protected]