Hello, everyone. My name is Pål Ryfors. I am the CEO of Episurf Medical. I hereby welcome you to the Episurf Medical Q2 2023 presentation. I will guide you through this presentation by making references to a set of slides. Please have those slides in front of you while listening to this. Starting off on slide number two, I would like to start by saying that we are definitely seeing a positive development in our business at the moment. The second quarter was the best quarter to date. In the month of June, we had more than two surgeries being scheduled per day, Monday to Sunday, which is about 100% up compared to previous run rates. You might recall that we've often been at run rates about or just below one per day.
This is really a nice development for us, the customer base grew by 42% in the quarter, we had 61 individual customers, orthopedic surgeons that is, who used our technology in a single quarter. It wasn't long ago when we had about 60 or 70 customers in a full year using our technology. Now we are definitely moving in the right direction. We're seeing a positive development, as I said, but it is time to take the next step and show that we can scale this up, with the distribution model, at a larger scale. The main strategic initiative today is that we are continuing to transition into a third-party distribution-based commercial model.
Our expense base will be, quite significantly decreased, as we're moving away from own sales reps to a distribution model in additional markets. We are targeting lower expenses by about SEK 25 million on an annual basis, which is a significant part of our expense base. I am glad that we are launching these strategic initiatives when we have a strong funding base to work from, and current funding is expected to last to successfully launch the Episealer Patellofemoral System and the Episealer MTP System on the U.S. market, while also continuing to drive growth in our existing markets internationally. On slide number three, a few of the highlights during the second quarter of 2023, the gross order intake grew by 57% to SEK 3.1 million.
Group net sales grew by 16% to SEK 2.2 million, and the customer base, as I mentioned, grew by 42%. The loss for the period amounted to SEK 28.9 million minus , which is an increase from the same quarter last year. In that number, you have a, say, SEK 4 million one-off item related to the just mentioned strategic initiatives, and the investments in the commercial organization and in product development have increased our cost in the last quarters, but investors should expect significantly lower cost base going forward. Cash at the end of the period amounted to SEK 107 million. Some of the key events I would like to mention includes the launch of the Episealer Patellofemoral System in U.A.E.
This is interesting, as we have said, that we intend to bring the Episealer Patellofemoral System, and also later on the Episealer MTP System, to other markets than the U.S. markets over time. This is a proof that we are doing just that. You should expect additional filings for this product in, other markets outside of the U.S. The first, U.S. Value Analysis Committee approval was obtained just now in the beginning of July. This is essentially a mandatory step before you conduct business with a new product or solution in a, in an individual hospital in the U.S.
In addition to being a fairly rigorous process, run by the hospital, it is important that you have surgeon support during those processes, and we're very, very glad that we have just that, and we expect several other VAC approvals in the coming weeks and months. The Episealer MTP System is going through an intense period of time if you look at that product development project, and we expect to file this 510(k) submission for this product quite soon. There are some additional tests, and other factors that need to be included in the final submission, but we're working through this quite rapidly now.
The first surgery in Canada within the EPIC-Knee study was also scheduled during the 2nd quarter, although the EPIC-Knee study gets a little bit less attention in Episurf today, it is an important project, but more on the long term for us, it's definitely ongoing, and we have some activity ongoing every quarter, we will take that all the way in the end. Customer acquisition rate on slide number four, we have many times said how important this is for us, if you look at this graph, you see in the last four quarters, we've had blue figures. You can extend that to the last seven quarters. We're now seeing a pretty stable growth period, and we expect this to continue.
In the calculation example on slide number five, that we've shown a couple of times, this is not a guidance or any forecast, but it is an illustration of the potential should we grow at about 50%, which we think is reasonable over time, especially as we open up the U.S. market and the market segments in the U.S. If you grow that from just above 100 surgeons on an annual basis, you will end up in five years' time in somewhere between 500 and 1,000 customers. If you look at the current pricing of our products, and the expected run rates per annum for individual surgeons using this technology, you see the revenue potential, and you see how you arrive at the revenue of about SEK 250 million .
We have clearly said that we don't believe these numbers are unrealistic in any way. On slide number six, it's an interesting illustration of how our portfolio is adding value to the orthopedic industry. We're trying to illustrate that by using images of several other products and also some key numbers. I will highlight a few of those. If you look at our most recently launched Episealer Patellofemoral System, first of all, scientific literature shows that about 18% of anyone having osteoarthritis in the knee, they have osteoarthritis in the patellofemoral compartment. The knee is made up out of three compartments: the lateral, the medial, and the patellofemoral compartment. Essentially, three different joints in the knee. 18% have osteoarthritis isolated to the patellofemoral compartment.
However, at the bottom line, you see about nine out of 10 of the patients having osteoarthritis in the knee, get a total knee replacement. There is a big overtreatment and a big mismatch in the industry if you look at clinical indications and also the usage of knee replacements. As we've heard many times, we are not alone in having the view that a lot of patients who got a total knee could have benefited from a smaller prosthesis at some point in time. This is what we are bringing to the industry if you look at our knee portfolio. On slide number seven, we're moving on with the U.S. market.
If you compare the map you see on the slide with what I've showed you when we presented the results for the first quarter, you will see that the map has developed quite a lot. We are now covering big parts of the U.S., and we are getting incoming calls from distributors who wants to carry this technology as it is very interesting for them and represents a new technology and a new offering to their customers. Several VAC processes are ongoing across the U.S., and we are quite happy about the reception, but we're yet to show you the revenue numbers when this comes in. MRI tests, test scans are being submitted to us quite frequently now, and more and more hospitals are being connected to our system.
Other ways of looking at the attention we get in the U.S. is presented on slide number eight, and this is a little bit more on the soft side of things, but we think it's interesting to see that we're invited to several podcasts. Please have a look at those, and the one at the bottom, the Inside Orthopedics, is going to be launched any day, and it's a quite big podcast in the orthopedic industry. Anyone wanting to deep dig a bit deeper into our U.S. commercialization efforts, please have a look at this. We are continuing to file for regulatory clearances globally, and we have done this for quite some time now.
As I mentioned initially, it's time to scale up the, third-party distribution efforts in, several of these countries. Most recently, I mentioned, the Episealer Patellofemoral System launched in the United Arab Emirates, for example, and, investors should expect additional updates on what we're doing in, in, for example, India or Australia. There's a lot going on, in many, many countries globally. A summary of the strategy, we've altered this slide, slightly. What I should highlight is that the Episealer Patellofemoral System, the commercialization of this product is a key priority for us at the moment, and that this has just started. The Episealer MTP System, the timetable was a bit, about one year later than the, than for the patellofemoral system.
The intention is to file the 510(k) submission in a matter of weeks or months, and to launch the product with a rapid launch in 2024. The Episealer Knee, we are continuing to commercialize that globally in Europe and certain other markets, especially in Asia and in the Middle East. The Episealer Talus is what we do, mirrors pretty well what we're doing for the Episealer Knee in our non-U.S. markets. The Episealer Knee in the U.S. market, the EPIC-Knee study, which is underlying a future PMA process, is ongoing, although at slower pace than we would have hoped for, but over time, it's an important product for us as we want to bring our full knee portfolio to the U.S. market.
On the final slide, we show you the list of shareholders in the second quarter. There are no major changes to report as far as I'm concerned. We are grateful for the support that we have from all of our shareholders. With that, I would like to wish you all a great summer and say thank you very much for your attention.