Individuals have used the GLP-1 wave to realize fast and important weight reduction. However given the drug’s impact on controlling sort 2 diabetes, it is no shock that DexCom CEO Jake Leach additionally desires to experience the wave. DexCom makes steady glucose monitoring units (CGMs) which are worn by sufferers 24/7. They have been initially used for the sort 1 inhabitants who wanted them to know when to take insulin and handle their illness, however – as proof of their efficacy has elevated – CGMs at the moment are additionally prescribed for sort 2 diabetes sufferers.

“So we have been engaged on how we will use the CGMs to optimize pharmaceutical therapies, insulin being the primary one. [but] there are alternatives with GLP-1s,” Leach mentioned in a current interview. “There are all types of alternatives for us to information the remedy in order that each the physician and the affected person can work collectively to get a greater final result sooner.”

CGMs give diabetics an estimate of their glucose ranges by measuring the glucose within the interstitial fluid surrounding the cells. Blood exams yield A1c outcomes that are thought of a greater measure, however the fixed pricks and blood attracts are taxing to say the least. It’s also not doable to carry out steady finger sticks to acquire real-time knowledge. Prescribed by healthcare suppliers, CGMs have a small sensor that’s inserted underneath the pores and skin to supply an correct sense of glucose ranges all through the day.

Like weight problems, sort 2 diabetes is a metabolic illness, and GLP-1s are efficient at suppressing urge for food, thereby affecting metabolism and insulin ranges.

“GLP-1s present nice outcomes. However I really feel and have seen in all the info that we have a look at that while you use CGM and GLP-1 collectively you get a greater outcome [mainly because] they’re engaged on various things,” Leach mentioned. “CGM is engaged on understanding how totally different meals and totally different weight loss program decisions, exercise ranges, all these issues, how this truly impacts your glucose. In the event you use a GLP-1, the CGM will present you ways a lot better you carry out while you use it.”

Whereas in case you solely use GLP-1s and do not measure your glucose ranges, “the one actual suggestions you’ve gotten about the way you’re doing is your weight” and that impression can last as long as 90 days in case you measure your A1c, Leach famous.

CGMs can even assist tailor an individual’s weight loss program.

“I feel among the classes which are so essential about good vitamin do not come from GLP-1. It comes from CGM,” he defined, though he was unable to say how massive the universe of sort 2 diabetes sufferers with GLP-1s is.

Leach additionally famous that utilizing CGMs together with GLP-1s in folks battling sort 2 diabetes can also be economically possible.

“I feel the CGM is such a cheap answer,” he mentioned. “If you concentrate on the price of CGM if somebody makes use of CGM for a yr, we’re speaking about $1,000, proper? That is a fairly compelling monetary argument while you have a look at the well being care financial savings.”

Certainly, a examine to find out whether or not using CGM in GLP-1 sufferers is cost-effective for payers seems to echo Leach. That examine was performed by a guide doctor to Abbott and two of its workers. Abbott is a competitor of DexCom and has its personal CGM product, the FreeStyle Libre. Though Abbott’s expertise differs from DexCom’s – Kevin Sayer, DexCom’s earlier CEO, as soon as described the FreeStyle Libre as not being a real CGM – the product has been gaining market share.

To counter that and cement Dexcom’s place as a number one innovator on the earth of CGMs, the San Diego-based firm plans to launch the DexCom G8 sensor, which is anticipated to make the most recent DexCom transportable CGM machine the smallest CGM on the earth when it turns into out there.

“It is going to be probably the most superior transportable system now we have ever produced,” Leach mentioned, in response to the webcast of his Jan. 12 remarks on the annual JP Morgan convention. “The design modifications will present improved sensing and fault detection. The sensor may even be 50% smaller than the G7 sensor, which means the wearable machine would be the smallest CGM in the marketplace at launch.”

No launch date has been specified but.

Regardless of the driver – worldwide gross sales enlargement, leaping on the GLP-1 bandwagon, or the cutting-edge, smallest CGM launch – DexCom and its inventory worth desperately want a profitable story. The inventory reached its peak in November 2021 when it traded above $160. The market has since dropped its worth to lower than half resulting from a wide range of missteps, together with a gross sales restructuring that did not go as deliberate and a warning letter from the FDA over the situation of two factories.

The inventory is at present buying and selling round $70. The markets will reenter on February 12, when the corporate studies its fourth-quarter and monetary 2025 earnings outcomes.