Dear Doctor, please don't leave us for Medtronic!!! haha

This guy Ed C. out of Columbus is the laughing stock at Medtronic now!!! After reading his letter that one of my docs gave me we all could not stop laughing. He states in the letter that his docs should never use a device that is 510k approved!! lololololol!!! hahahahahaha. Guess what good ole' Eddie, UPC is 510k approved too! Hahahahahahaha! Thanks for the free advertisement to your docs! Especially when everything you said is false! It is cheaper and adjustable!! lol!!! Goodbye Eddie and UPC!!! Your days are numbered!!!

Your friends,

Medtronic

 

Does anybody know what Medtronic will price their treatment at? I had heard that they will price it at less than $65 for the Urgent PC lead set, though I have not heard what the exact amount would be.

 

Leave Eddie boy alone. His elevator does not run all the way to the top floor. It is cruel to pick on a r*****.

 

Stop your whining an go sell something please. Fricken baby. Go back to pharma please if you cannot handle the illustrious and technicle world or medical device

 

Bottom line: Has Medtronic picked up any accounts yet or not? If so, how did they do it? Price, charm, relationship? If it was simply price, then that is a losing strategy and Cogentix doesn't have much to fear. If it was relationships or something else (bundling), then Cogentix may be in trouble.

 

Get this thru your thick skull, stop being a denier and start facing reality. We have a lot to worry, regardless of how MDT is stealing our PTNS customers, and steal they will.

If MDT is competing on price, it is going to be the death of Cogentix. If MDT cuts the price per Trx down to say about $35 to $40, we go out of business, whether or not we match their price. If we do not match the price, we lose all of our PTNS business very quickly and lose about $14 million a year bottom line, in addition to the loss we are already sustaining . Why would a customer in his right mind pay double the price by buying from us? If we match the price, our bottom declines by about $8 to $9 million and we burn $8 to $9 million of extra cash per year.

We do not have enough cash reserves on hand to withstand the MDT price reduction. With the kind of a loss/cash burn rate we will incur, we will last for no more than 6 months . That is a recipe to bankruptcy for us.

And what about MDT if they cut the price. They still make a lot of money, because there is hardly any cost involved for their Trx, there are no lead sets they have to sell and ship. Basically the cost per Trx to MDT is pennies. And if they get even one extra interstim patient out of their every 100 PTNS patients, they are already way ahead . And if they do a good job of bundling, which they will, they will come out way, way more ahead. You can bet MDT is not run by dummies. In fact their stated purpose is to drive more patients to their highly-profitable interstim business. That is what their reps are trained to do.

MDT will not lose money on this business. And even if they do (not at all likely), who do you think will suffer in the event of a price war: a $50 billion MDT or a $50 million Cogentix with very little cash reserves on hand, that has never made a profit in its history, and that will go deeper in the red competing against MDT.

I have yet to see a scenario on how we can win against MDT. I have seen a lot of bravado from many of our cohorts but no strategy that leads me to believe that we can successfully compete against MDT. So if you believe there is a strategy that will let us succeed, please present it logically, and leave your emotions and bravado out of this.

 

Actually, my statement was not about emotions or bravado. It was simply asking if we have lost any accounts and why. I do want to thank you for taking the "Donald Trump" tact of insulting and bullying to any comments that you think don't align to your own.

In terms of Cogentix strategy, the reason I don't think losing on pricing is "huge" in that I think a lower price will actually lead to short term boost in usage. I think the therapy may at a lower price actually increase adoption and potentially lead to moving the therapy up in the algorithm of care. We may loose some on margins, but may be good overall for the market.

 

If lower price will lead to increase in usage, why has Cogentix not already done that to solidify its penetration? Am I missing something in your logic here?

Furthermore, you completely ignored the point that Cogentix does not have the financial wherewithal to survive a price war.

 

Accept my premise and stop trying to over analyze ok? I find it hard to explain logical rationale to simpletons that have a hard time grasping the realities of what are real issues.

 

Straight from MDT
They will not drop their prices significantly ...based on what? Becuase every 2 years medicare looks at Average sales prices or ASP on codes that are reimbursed. (PTNS's cpt code for example)
If they see one company offering super low pricing, then the reimbursement rate goes down.

Pretty sure medtronic is smarter then this.

So I do not think that cogentix will lose 100% right away of the ptns business. They will lose the larger accounts that can order in bulk and want a discount. Why wouldnt they? Unless cogentix is going to match pricing, which Im pretty sure I remember Darin saying at the NSM we will not lose on price! Guess what, welcome to reality.

Eventually, when cogentix starts laying off due to loss of sales, stock dropping etc., I think the smaller accounts that are more supportet heavily by the Nuro rep and Interstim rep will start switching too.
And by the way, medtronic does pay consulants. .. A hell of a lot more then Cogentix does or can!

So in the long run, I think cogentix has no hope.
A company thats stock has been plummeting, a ceo that is hands down the worst Ive ever seen, zero pipeline, a scope that barely sells and a major competitor thats willing to do as much as they can to take the "largest accounts" from them.
and anyone that believes that cogentix is a thriving company is clearly blind. They have no money and are in debt. and so was vision sciences.

 

All any of Medtronic's (InterStim) competitors need to do is place a call to DOJ regarding InterStim reps conduct in the office and the OR. These reps ARE selling directly to the patient, they have pen access to the patient's records in addition to calling the patient frequently during the "test" period in an effort to push the patient to move forward with the implant. They are practicing medicine in the OR, based on their conduct within the office and the OR, any Investigator would be hard pressed to avoid prosecuting these individuals. If the Feds questioned the docs about this, I think that the docs would protect themselves as opposed to standing up for the reps. My logic is that there isn't a doc around who would acquiesce to losing their medical license because they were standing up for the rep or Medtronic (nor should they). And don't get me started on how they reward reps financially for pushing "double implants" on unsuspecting patients and physicians. The leadership is rotten to the core, and completely aware of the reps behavior in the field, yet choose to turn a blind eye based upon hitting a number. Omar and Teft are also painfully aware of these behaviors, yet are so embroiled in the quality issues where they narrowly avoided prosecution, that they both need to obscure any bad news from the shareholders. These guys are Enron with a blue blanket, and highly paid lobbyists keeping them from ending up behind bars. I pity any InterStim patients, the Feds should yank the explant records from Medtronic, and review these closely. There is a very good correlation for high performing reps and explants (all the rep needs to do is set the rate of the implant a little higher so that it burns out more quickly). If you compete against InterStim you're going into a gunfight with a pencil, not only do you need to play on a level playing field, you're going to have to fight dirty, like they do, to make any progress against them. Good luck!

 

What's MDT charging nowadays?