Dexcom’s CEO has already created some magic for traders.
Final Monday, the maker of steady glucose displays for folks battling diabetes introduced its preliminary fourth-quarter monetary outcomes stating that it expects to garner not less than $1.03 billion within the quarter that ended December 31, a 26% leap over the identical interval a 12 months in the past.
However the firm’s CEO — Kevin Sayer, a diabetic himself — will not be taking any victory laps. In an interview in San Francisco through the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Convention, Sayer mentioned there’s far more to realize. Foremost amongst them is to make the corporate’s glucose sensing means extra rapidly and broadly accessible to folks, together with to sort 2 diabetes sufferers. Most sufferers who use steady glucose displays to higher management their blood glucose ranges are sort 1 diabetes sufferers needing insulin however a much wider inhabitants of diabetics may also profit from Dexcom’s units, per Sayer.
Actually, Dexcom has developed a shopper gadget — known as Stelo — that it’ll market on to Sort 2 diabetes sufferers who should not on insulin remedy. Dexcom has already submitted the appliance with the FDA and expects to launch it subsequent summer time.
Whereas he has management over a few of the inner selections on product and operations, on the subject of the vagaries of the healthcare business, Sayer would fortunately wield a magic wand to realize his needs. And paramount amongst that’s getting his firm’s units rapidly to those that want it.
“I do assume having access to merchandise remains to be troublesome for folks and understanding how this entire system works. I’d like to wave a magic wand and try this,” he mentioned.
However it’s not solely about accessibility and lowering complexity in healthcare so that folks can merely get the care they want when they should
Sayer needs to wave a wand to remodel reimbursement coverage.
“I’d like to see us pay for [preventive] drugs slightly than caring for folks once they’re sick,” Sayer mentioned.
He added that he believes the Dexcom G7 CGM would work very nicely for pregnant girls with gestational diabetes however that may require pitching “our case to payers” and doing research.
“We consider our instrument on the being pregnant aspect might in the end change into a diagnostic to foretell the sort of situation. However once more, a bunch of finding out, a bunch of labor. And so I’d like to see the system pay for wellness. I’d like to see the system pay for [preventive] drugs slightly than, significantly within the US, simply cope with ‘Uh oh, this individual’s sick, let’s throw cash at it.’”
Sayer mentioned he hopes employers can play a task in making preventive drugs an ordinary, however nearly instantly acknowledged the difficulties forward.
“And employers might drive that presumably on their finish, however employers try to scale back their prices, and in all equity, this entire system with the way in which rebates and reductions or every part work, I don’t know that anyone is aware of…” he trailed off with out ending his thought.
The inference, nonetheless, is evident: I’m CEO of a $4 billion firm and but really feel hamstrung by an opaque system with center males who might not essentially have the curiosity of sufferers at coronary heart.
For that to alter, all of us want a magic wand for healthcare. Or realistically perhaps Congress must wield its energy.
Photograph: undefined undefined, Getty Pictures
