Coming off what it’s described as its “best year ever,” the continuous glucose monitoring provider Dexcom is now looking to expand its work among people with Type 2 diabetes in a new, wider collaboration with Welldoc and its digital health platforms.
Dexcom has unveiled plans to provide a new, single offering that combines its G6 monitor with Welldoc’s BlueStar digital app to provide personalized data, offer FDA-cleared coaching and connect users to healthcare providers.
“This partnership allows us to bring together the two most challenging, and often independent, elements of diabetes management—glucose monitoring and the impact of lifestyle choices—for the first time,” Welldoc CEO Kevin McRaith said in a release.
Dexcom has previously described the field as an untapped area with large potential—especially among patients with Type 2 diabetes who are not receiving daily insulin therapies but still want to regularly check their blood sugar levels with Dexcom’s wearable, wireless patch.
“Non-intensive Type 2 patients are a huge opportunity here in the U.S., with seven times more patients than there are in the intensive insulin space,” Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer said during the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference in January. “And if you add to that prediabetes and diabetes prevention, the number of opportunities to serve patients in this market just becomes massive.”
The service will start rolling out to select employers and health systems after beginning with an unnamed Fortune 100 company, the partners said.
Welldoc recently announced that its platform would be also compatible with an upcoming connected insulin pen being developed by Eli Lilly & Co. The Big Pharma said it would collaborate on a new version of the company’s app to include dosing data for several of its insulins.
Meanwhile, Teladoc has planned a pilot program to provide Dexcom’s CGM to patients with Type 2 diabetes as well. Following its $18.5 billion acquisition of Livongo, the telehealth giant will supply the sensors at no cost to certain participants of Teladoc and the virtual diabetes clinic’s programs before widening the program later this year.