The company has hit a number of milestones recently, including updated CGMs, new AI capabilities, expanded partnerships and more.
Speaking to Drug Delivery Business News at the American Diabetes Association’s 85th Scientific Sessions in Chicago, Dexcom President and COO Jake Leach explained how the company continues to drive interest in its sensor platforms.
“The volume of CGM data at this conference shows the outcomes that this technology can provide,” Leach said. “There are still so few people that are using it, even globally. We’ve really just got to continue to drive awareness and access to this product and technology.”
Partnership with Oura deliver new levels of patient engagement
Last fall, an initial partnership struck between Oura and Dexcom highlighted collaboration between two different types of health monitoring technologies. Now, following expansions and integrations, the companies can provide an even clearer image of the benefits they provide together.
Oura tracks metrics like sleep and stress. It delivers a “readiness” score in the morning based on sleep activity. By adding glucose in, they can even further enhance that readiness score, enabling users to manage their glucose and potentially change its impact to sleep.
With stress, Leach said the companies remain in the early stages of gaining insights for that data, but there’s potential to see how glucose levels affect that, too.
“There’s, there’s a tremendous amount of opportunity to continue to work with that data and provide users more personalized insights,” he said.
The partnership aims to help people improve their metabolic health by integrating Dexcom glucose data with vital sign, sleep, stress, heart health and activity data from the Oura Ring. Combining glucose data with biometrics can deliver a more complete picture of overall health to users. It led to a $200 million fundraising round for Oura, led by Dexcom.
“Oura is helping raise the awareness that the technology is out there and the benefits as well,” Leach said. “The integration is pretty slick. It’s been great to get two innovative teams together.”
It points to an overall evolution of technology, especially with the use of AI in a new feature that excites Leach a great deal.
That leads to advances in AI
Dexcom said a study performed using CGM and food logging showed that people were more engaged with food logging when wearing a CGM versus when they weren’t. Now, the company has a photo meal logging feature brought to the G7 platform. This technology utilizes AI to explain or detect the food.
“I took a picture of eggs Benedict and it actually detected that there was crab in it,” Leach said. “It’s pretty impressive. We’re really excited about it and we’ll keep building on that.”
The technology is proprietary to Dexcom’s app, enabled through Google’s Vertex AI. Leach said the food logging comes through the same technology used in the base engines for the Stelo CGM’s insight report.
This marks the introduction into the G7 platform for the technology, which right now captures the meal and its description. Down the line, Leach said it could get to the point where it presents macros like carbohydrates.
After Dexcom continues to build the data library, the AI could start recommending food, suggest portion sizes and further help with insulin dosing or other medications, Leach explained.
“I believe that AI is an amazing tool to be able to engage users, because you’re giving them personalized insight,” he said. “It’s geared up to be really useful for them, instead of just presenting the numbers or reports that are kind of auto-generated. As the future progresses here, it’ll be a big component of CGM technology.”
Dexcom continues to spearhead the type 2 diabetes charge
Elsewhere, Dexcom continues to drive awareness among the type 2 diabetes population. The company earlier this year launched a report on type 2 attitudes and access in Europe and the Middle East. At ADA, Dexcom followed up with a similar report for the U.S. type 2 landscape.
Findings provide insights into perceptions around diabetes technology from more than 400 healthcare professionals and people with type 2 diabetes across the U.S.
“The outcome of that is that the majority of healthcare providers now see CGM as something that should be the standard of care of anyone with type 2 diabetes,” Leach said. “That definitely marks a movement in perspectives on CGM. If you would ask that same question three years ago, I think it would have been much more focused on insulin use, which is historically where CGM started. But, now that CGMs are so much more available and covered by insurance, we’re seeing more and more use in people with type 2 not on insulin, which is the majority of people with type 2. That’s really good.”
Leach said the U.S. results proved similar to EMEA, but noted that strong GLP-1 use in the U.S. influenced this iteration of the report. All U.S. physicians surveyed unanimously support the use of CGM in combination with GLP-1 medications.
He notes that the support for the combination of technology and medication represents a “good indicator for the future.”
“It’s on us to continue to raise that awareness at events here with advocacy groups and others,” Leach said. “We just need to make sure people understand what CGM can do.”
15-day G7, Stelo add to growing portfolio
Other recent highlights for Dexcom include its continued Stelo over-the-counter CGM rollout and an extended wear time for G7.
Stelo launched last summer and Leach said the company remains excited about new patients coming into CGM with no experienced.
“They’re learning and looking at the patient data, we see the improvements they’re making and the engagement in the management of their health,” Leach said. “That’s going well.”
With the G7, Dexcom announced in April that the FDA cleared its G7 15-day CGM system. The clearance, which covers people over the age of 18 years old in the U.S., made the G7, Dexcom’s latest-generation CGM, the longest-lasting wearable CGM, according to the company.
“It’s been a big request,” Leach said. “[Users] want to be able to wear their sensors longer. … It’s also an advancement in terms of the algorithm. We’ve taken everything we’ve learned since we launched G7 in terms of field performance and manufacturing parameters and applied that all in the 15-day CGM.”
Leach called it the most accurate sensor developed by Dexcom, in addition to the longest-lasting. He said the company expects to launch it later this year.
The updated system marks another step forward, while he said Dexcom intends to continue advancing adhesion technology to accompany the longer-lasting sensor.
Right now, the 15-day sensor allows for effectively a two-per-month package. Leach said the goal remains to potentially extend sensor life but it’s important to make sure the sensors actually last the entire time.
“I do think there can be — there definitely will be — some incremental gains, but we’re super happy about the 15-day CGM,” he said. “I think that’s a nice place for now.”
