Google’s life sciences arm and DexCom, a San Diego maker of devices that track diabetes, just announced they’ll jointly develop a series of next-gen continuous glucose monitors.
It’s a bold step in tapping a huge market: Bringing constant diabetes monitoring to the Type 2 diabetes patient population.
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Continuous glucose monitors remain unwieldy and expensive, so here’s the idea: Build a simple, low-cost and disposable continuous glucose monitor that’s just about the size of a Band-Aid. Make it connected to the cloud, and expand its reach past the Type 1 diabetes market – incorporating CGM use in an advanced data analytics platform.
The devices will be “substantially smaller and much less expensive” than the products currently available on the market, DexCom CEO Kevin Sayer said in a conference call. The first generation of these monitors should roll out in the next two to three years; a second product will come in the next five years.
It’ll work by combining Google’s miniaturized electronics platform with DexCom’s sensor technology. DexCom has exclusive rights to Google’s intellectual property around this device, he said.
Continuous glucose monitors are still fairly pricy, which is why they sell better with the U.S. insurance than they do abroad, said DexCom vice
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“This partnership has the potential to change the face of diabetes technology forever,” DexCom CEO Kevin Sayer said in a statement. “Working together, we believe we can introduce products that will move us beyond our core Type 1 business to become the standard of care for all people living with diabetes.”
Continuous glucose monitors generate a steady flow of rich data; this partnership will also center on making sense of this information to improve outcomes and ultimately cut down on the costs of Type 1 diabetes care. It’ll work with Google on these data analytics as they apply to large-scale clinical trials – as is needed with the far more prevalent Type 2 diabetes – and will seek out other markets for this technology, Sayer said.
