Ascensia Diabetes Care said this week that inked a deal to co-develop and distribute continuous glucose monitoring systems with device developer Poctech.
According to the terms of the deal, Ascensia will become the exclusive distributor for Poctech’s existing CGM product in 13 selected markets. Ascensia said it plans to start distributing the device in the second half of the year.
The companies are also slated to co-develop next-gen versions of Poctech’s CGM tech.
“We are committed to expanding our business beyond blood glucose monitoring and we see continuous glucose monitoring as a critical component of diabetes care. This partnership will enable us to bring an approved CGM product to selected markets in 2019 and at the same time create novel CGM systems that build on POCTech’s existing technology to address some of the unmet needs of people with diabetes.” Ascensia CEO Michael Kloss said in prepared remarks.
“The collaboration between the two companies is an important milestone to the goal of reaching out to the worldwide market as well as creating our next generation CGM products. By combining Ascensia’s strength in global marketing, regulatory affairs, quality systems, and capabilities for designing and testing new systems, with POCTech’s expertise in sensor technology, we will together be able to provide the diabetes community with high quality and cost effective products,” Poctech president & CSO Yanan Zhang added.
“This agreement with POCTech is the key first step in building a world-class CGM franchise for Ascensia. We are aiming to use a combination of partnerships and our own in-house CGM development program to build a pipeline of state-of-the-art CGM products that improve on what is currently available for people with diabetes,” Kloss said.
