A change of guard — whether necessitated by external events or the natural progression of the business requiring new leadership — is always a time when certain things may get lost in translation.
In the case of Glooko, a diabetes data management company in the digital health world, the change from a previous CEO has led to an awkward, out-of-sync moment with Novo Nordisk, a top partner. It involves a smart insulin pen device that the public Danish company seems to be developing in partnership with Glooko.
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Here’s how the messaging breakdown occurred:
In early March during the SXSW festival in Austin, I had the opportunity to interview Rick Altinger who was still the CEO of Glooko. In a 30-minute plus interview, Altinger, a thoughtful and knowledgeable speaker on the diabetes market, held forth on various aspects of Glooko’s business.
One involved the company’s partnership with Novo Nordisk, which apparently has been going very well and involves a co-branded mobile app for insulin users. Of his own accord, Altinger began talking about something new that Glooko has been doing with Novo Nordisk: a smart insulin pen. Here are his remarks (slightly edited for clarity):
We have also done a smart-pen project with them. So, one of the new and upcoming devices for people with diabetes is an insulin pen that has intelligence in it so it keeps track of when you dosed and how much you dosed. It’s easy to forget. Even though it’s an injection, it’s easy to forget – ‘Did I take my injection?’ And then, ‘How much did I take?’
You dial up how much you take and you need to remember that. Right now the insulin pens don’t have any of that in them. So we’ve launched in Europe – in Sweden actually. It’s a first initiative with them there and we’ll be doing more and more with smart pens.
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I asked if this device would require FDA clearance.
As we get ready to come to the U.S., there’s multiple ways to do it and it’s unclear the pathway that Novo Nordisk is going to go, but it’s not like a drug trial by any means.
There are two comapnies on the market today that are independent companies. One has taken a glass cartridge of insulin and put it inside of their device. In their case, they’ve gotten FDA clearance because they are actually dosing the insulin with their device.
In another case, they’ve take an existing pen and put a little cap on top of it. In their case, they are just an accessory – sensor on the top. Now they are still regulated by the FDA but they are a class I device.
Altinger didn’t name the U.S. companies that are developing these devices, but a March article on smart insulin pens lists companies like Common Sensing, Companion Medical and Emperra Digital Diabetes Care. The article also notes that Becton Dickinson is developing a smart attachment to its insulin pen and Eli Lilly is working on its own insulin pen. While the article credits, Novo for creating the first insulin pen back in 1985, there is no mention of Novo Nordisk in the context of developing a next-gen, smart insulin pen.
Given the information from Altinger, I asked about the smart pen project when interviewing Russ Johannesson, who became the new Glooko CEO less than one month after my interview with Altinger. [Altinger is still with Glooko as Executive Vice President.] Here’s how Johannesson responded:
“That is still in the works, where we are working on that relationship right now,” he said, in the recent phone interview. “We are pretty bullish on the fact that it will happen, but I don’t know that we are ready to announce the specifics around that.”
Johannesson said it would be more appropriate to ask a Novo representative about any plans to introduce the smart insulin pen device in the U.S.
Which is exactly what I did when interviewing Amy West soon after. West is the senior director of patient marketing and digital health innovation at Novo Nordisk.
“Unfortunately, that I am not able to talk about this at this time,” West declared. “It’s not something that’s been publicly announced.”
I pushed back saying that Altinger had already spoken about it to which a Novo public relations professional, listening in on the interview, urged me to go talk to Glooko to get clarification.
The details from Altinger, followed by mum’s the word from West and an uncomfortable punt from Johannesson aside, the cat’s out of the bag. Novo is developing a smart insulin pen device.
Meanwhile, the lesson for Glooko might be don’t seek a media interview for a chief executive who will soon be replaced by another, although us journalists love it when gaps appear in strict messaging.
Photo: Getty Images, monique28
Clarification: An earlier version of the story implied that Novo Nordisk developing a smart pen was completely new information. It wasn’t, but no previous story appears to have quoted a senior executive on Glooko’s role in the project.
