01 / KOL mapping
Indication-specific KOL identification
From our board and our connections across the German hospital landscape — typically heads of department or senior consultants at university hospitals and maximum-care hospitals.
Module 6 of the plug-and-play solution
KOLs at German university hospitals — as multipliers for your market entry roadmap.
Clinical validation at a top-five hospital beats a hundred conversations with distributors. We bring an existing board with us — heads of department, nursing directors, hospital procurement, biomedical engineering. You get clinical anchoring instead of building a KOL network from zero.
- KOL network
- Nursing directors
- Hospital procurement
- Biomedical engineering
- Pre-sale trials
The problem
Without clinical anchoring, every product ends up priced against its cheapest alternative.
The German hospital market rewards clinically differentiated products with top margins — but only where that differentiation is:
- clinically documented (a study, user experience, outcome data),
- validated by a leading university hospital,
- visible to the German clinical community (symposia, trade press, KOL statements).
Foreign manufacturers often try to build KOL relationships themselves through cold outreach. In the German hospital context, with its established networks and long relationship-building cycles, that takes 12 to 24 months. Skip it, and procurement will compare your product with the cheapest alternatives — regardless of product quality.
5 Leading university hospitals — the strategically most important KOL sites for a market entry
12–24 mo. Time to build KOL relationships through cold outreach without an existing network
×20 The Zassi effect — twenty times the next-best EU market after the KOL trial in Göttingen
4 functions Heads of department, nursing directors, hospital procurement, biomedical engineering — all four have to carry the product
The solution — Module 6
Five disciplines for clinical anchoring in the German market.
We bring an existing Board of Experts with us — KOLs who advise clinically on our mandates and who are available for pre-sale trials, studies and roll-out support.
02 / Pre-sale
Pre-sale trials at university hospitals
A clinical trial at a university hospital that fits the indication — the Zassi roadmap (Göttingen, 2002) is the blueprint.
03 / Studies
Clinical studies and multi-centre trials
Study design, ethics committee coordination, monitoring of patient recruitment and outcome reporting across several German university hospitals.
04 / Training
KOL training for hospital users
The KOL trains the users, the users train their colleagues inside the hospital — more effective than bringing in an external trainer.
05 / Functions
Nursing, procurement, engineering
Clinical validation alone is not enough — nursing (application), procurement (DRG) and biomedical engineering (assessment) have to carry the product too.
Where we differ
Why not build the KOL relationships yourself?
The German hospital context rewards established relationships more than the effort of building them. That is the structural advantage of an existing board.
| Aspect | Building KOLs yourself (cold outreach) | Board of Experts at MEX |
|---|---|---|
| Time to first KOL | 12–24 months | 4–8 weeks — the relationships already exist |
| Functions covered | Usually heads of department only | Heads of department, nursing directors, procurement, biomedical engineering |
| Link to sales | A KOL with no field team — the endorsement evaporates | The endorsement feeds straight into the field team of your own company |
| Marketing integration | The KOL statement stays isolated | Study data goes into trade PR and symposia (Module 3) |
| Study support | An external CRO is required | Can be set up from within the board |
Heads this module
Jörg Saborowski
Founder and managing director of MEX. Over 27 years he has built the Board of Experts — heads of department in surgery, anaesthesiology, intensive care, urology and cardiology, together with nursing directors, hospital procurement and biomedical engineering. With this board he ran the Zassi pre-sale trials in Göttingen (2002) and the Ekos multi-centre studies (1999).
A hundred conversations with distributors do not beat a clinical trial at the right university hospital. That was true in 2002 and it is more true in 2026.
Which KOL constellation would anchor your market entry?
In 30 minutes we sketch out which university hospitals make sense for a pre-sale trial in your indication — and which KOL profiles fit.
Request a KOL conversation Frequently asked questions
What clients usually want to clarify.
- Who sits on the Board of Experts?
- Heads of department and senior consultants from the relevant disciplines (surgery, anaesthesiology, intensive care, urology, cardiology and others), nursing directors, hospital procurement and biomedical engineering. We discuss the specific profiles for your indication in the strategy call — anything tied to a named client only under NDA.
- Can you recruit KOLs for our clinical study?
- Yes, that is one of the core functions of Module 6. From within the board we identify three to five suitable KOLs, arrange the first conversations and set up the study.
- What does Module 6 cost?
- Fees are set per mandate, depending on the indication, the study effort and the number of KOLs involved. We give you a first estimate in the discovery call.
- Can KOLs endorse our product publicly?
- KOL endorsements are given under the professional responsibility of the KOL — we coordinate, but the content is entirely their decision. Advertising claims based on KOL statements pass an Art. 7 MDR review (Module 2).