Yahoo Finance Nick Jonas and Dexcom talk partnership, the future of diabetes management tech
When Nick Jonas attended SXSW this year, it wasn't to perform – instead, it was to raise awareness about continuous glucose monitoring, or CGM, a technology that can provide real-time blood glucose readings to help manage diabetes.
Jonas, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 13, serves as a brand ambassador for Dexcom (DXCM), a CGM developer with a $44 billion market cap. To Dexcom COO Jake Leach, though CGM's opportunities are immense, the tech itself in many ways is still in its early days.
“Insulin has been around for over 100 years, but CGM has only been around for two decades and it’s only really become the standard of care in the last five years,” said Leach. “So, we’re still sometimes letting people know it exists, because we even still get physicians who aren’t aware of it in primary care settings, where diabetes is a small portion of the concerns they’re trying to manage… When it comes to building awareness, we’re just beginning and there’s still plenty of ways to go.”
Still, for Jonas, CGM has changed the way he lives his day-to-day life, and he's gotten to watch as respond as the technology has evolved.
“It’s incredible to see, from my early days of living with the disease back when I was 13 to where we are now,” he told Yahoo Finance. “So much has changed in that 17-year period. It’s really encouraging and I’m now basically able to live my life in a much more free way, because I have the ability to see those numbers in real time, and make those changes as needed to live a happier, healthier life.”
Jonas continued: “In those 17 years, so much has changed, and yet awareness about the technologies available I think is still so low. We did a show of hands [at SXSW] of people who either know someone with diabetes or have it themselves, and nearly every hand went up. When we asked about whether people know about CGM, it was a fraction of a fraction, a couple of hands. That’s kind of the spot we’re at, even though there’s a growing conversation around it.”
'We really believe CGM is a technology that's scalable'
Though technological innovation is barreling forward, working on making CGM available to as many people as possible is just as important.
"We're actually not far away from, for example, something like a hands-free artificial pancreas, but I actually think we are still far away from access to that type of technology for everybody. I fear it will never happen, so the idea is that we need to make CGM available to everyone who can benefit from it. There are still so many people who don’t have access to CGM, and luckily we’ve seen improvements on insulin pricing. I also think we’ll be able to see CGM applications for CGM outside [Type 1, Type 2 and gestational] diabetes, for instance, for pre-diabetes,” Leach said.
To be sure, Dexcom has a number of competitors, including Roche, Medtronic, and Abbott. However, the size and necessary scale CGM needs to reach – more than 500 million adults have diabetes globally makes for a lot of space in the sector.
“We really believe CGM is a technology that’s scalable," said Leach. “I remember when our first product shipped to our first customer in 2006. It was our very first approved product that got out the door from a shipping area that was smaller than this room, and it was one guy packing. Now, the scale of what we’ve already been able to achieve with multiple manufacturing facilities – that kind of scale helps with cost and accessibility around the globe, and we’re going to keep driving for that on the innovation side.”
For Jonas, ultimately, CGM has been a tool that's helped him in his daily life, yes, but it's also helped him better communicate with his loved ones and better plan out his life.
“Many times I’ve been backstage before a show, and I know that in 20 minutes’ time, when I’m right in the middle of one of our songs, I’m going to have a low blood sugar crash,” said Jonas. “I’ve got a really supportive group of friends and family and team members on the road that are all aware, and know what to do in those situations… I know that a lot of people don’t want to open up that circle too wide, but I think that if someone is comfortable, it’s really helpful to lean on the people that love and support you through what’s a pretty intense disease.”
Allie Garfinkle is a Senior Tech Reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter at @agarfinks and on LinkedIn.
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