Synergy Surgical President: Hospitals can sell expired product while 'helping the next generation of surgeons'

Anthony Iaderosa, founder and president of Synergy Surgical, answered some of the most common questions about how the company works and if there are any restrictions for participating hospitals during the 2024 Fall Hospital Supply Chain Conference.

"These are the questions we most frequently get: 'do you buy expired product, and what do you do with it?' And the answer is yes, absolutely," Iaderosa said during his presentation. "We love expired product."

"To a hospital expired product is not only valueless, it actually has a negative value," he explained. "If you're being inspected and expired product is found on the shelves, your inspection is not going to go very well. But we take that expired product and we do business with just about every medical school and veterinary school in the United States, and they're ecstatic to have that product."

"We sell it at a huge discount, so they're able to train using the real product, the actual product they're going to use in an operating room," said Iaderosa. "So in addition to the fact that you're getting paid to get rid of expired product, you can feel good about helping the next generation of surgeons."

Iaderosa also explained that while there are certain supplies or products that Synergy will not buy from hospitals, they will still accept them as part of the inventory and dispose of them appropriately, the hospital just does not receive compensation for those items from Synergy. 

Hospitals can choose to either send an inventoried list to Synergy to receive a quote and explanation of which items would be accepted, or can choose to send the items all to Synergy to be inventoried there before receiving the same report. Items can then be kept and handled by Synergy, or sent back to the hospital at no cost, based on the hospital's choosing. 

Synergy Surgical purchases excess or expired products from hospitals and distributes them to other medical organizations including medical schools and veterinary programs. The company has grown from primarily reselling suture products to selling over 65,000 different items from 150 brand name manufacturers. 

This year's conference was sponsored by Synergy Surgical, and company founder Anthony Iaderosa spoke during the conference. 

The 2024 Fall Hospital Supply Chain Conference was held at the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada from October 14 through October 16.