The FDA cleared the company’s next-generation Dexcom G7 continuous glucose monitor (CGM) in December 2022. One month later, Lawver assumed the position of CCO. Within about a month, she was set to oversee the U.S. launch of the G7.
A former Johnson & Johnson executive, Lawver became the first to serve in Dexcom’s newly created CCO role. As she assumed the position amid a crucial time for the company, she observed what makes Dexcom one of the leaders in the diabetes technology space — and potentially beyond.
“The first few months I’ve just reaffirmed the reasons that I joined Dexcom,” Lawver told Drug Delivery Business News. “It’s an unmatched opportunity for impact on human health, both at a micro level and a macro level, really distinctively, with a customer focus orientation to everything we do. And it’s a great team.”
Lawver spoke with DDBN on the heels of the American Diabetes Association’s 83rd Scientific Sessions. At that event, Dexcom revealed its plans for a new product launch by next year. She touched on the commercial effort there, as well as the launch of G7 and the company’s amended mission.
Dexcom’s plans for a new sensor
At Dexcom’s Investor Day event, it revealed plans to bring the new product to market in the U.S. in 2024. The company designed it as a new sensor for people who don’t use insulin. According to Dexcom, that population includes approximately 70% of Americans with diabetes.
Dexcom said it plans for its new product to feature a 15-day sensor and a cash-pay option. The company wants to offer a new software experience tailored for those who are not on insulin.
For confidentiality reasons, Dexcom can only share so much information about its new product. Lawver explained that the company designed the sensor on the G7 hardware platform but with a fundamentally different software setup. The company designed the user interface and experience specifically for the population of users not on insulin.
Lawver estimates approximately 25 million people in the U.S. alone that fall into the targeted category. For now, it won’t include those covered by the recent changes to Medicare reimbursement for CGMs, though.
Dexcom intends to call the product the “Gen 1” version, with multiple iterations expected over time. It aims for a launch in 2024 as it sets sights on a different market to penetrate. The cash-pay option enables broad and rapid uptake while the company works with payors for broader coverage.
“This is a different kind of product or different kind of CGM than you’ve seen on the market before because of the population that we’re targeting,” Lawver explained. “We don’t want to get out ahead of ourselves and share things before we finalize things with the regulatory authorities, and we’re in a position to communicate more, but I promise, we are equally excited to share more details as much as you all are excited to hear them. So, stay tuned.”
The analysts’ view into Dexcom’s new play
BTIG analysts Marie Thibault and Sam Eiber wrote in a report that they previously expected a conservative outlook from Dexcom. However, the team’s “enthusiastic vision” proved to increase optimism, while the company upped its future financial outlook.
Based on “strong performance,” Dexcom updated its year-end 2025 financial targets as well.
The company projects 2025 revenue to range between $4.6 billion and $5.1 billion. It previously projected between $4 billion and $4.5 billion. That’s also a significant rise in just two years, with 2023 revenues expected to land between $3.4 billion and $3.515 billion.
“In addition to future efforts in new markets — T2 non-insulin users, prediabetes, and gestational diabetes— [Dexcom] repeatedly underscored that there is plenty of room for growth with today’s products and access, since there is already coverage in place to more than quadruple its U.S. customer base,” Thibault and Eiber wrote. “While we acknowledge some may have wanted the revised revenue and margin outlook to more closely reflect the potential for upside from these positive updates, we came away from the event with greater confidence in [Dexcom’s] ability to repeatedly outpace expectations.”
How that plays into the updated mission statement
Earlier this year, Dexcom Chair, President and CEO, Kevin Sayer, hinted at potential new avenues when speaking to Drug Delivery Business News. He explained that the company wanted to broaden its focus, even revising its mission statement. Dexcom updated its mission — enabling people to take control of diabetes — by changing “diabetes” to “health.”
“We’ve revised our mission statement,” Sayer told DDBN in January. “In the past, we always talked about enabling people to take control of diabetes. We’ve changed diabetes to health. We’re enabling people to take control of their health because metabolic health and glucose values and the information we can provide are very much synonymous.”
Lawver said that when she began interviewing with Dexcom, the company was in the process of changing the letters on the wall to update that mission.
“It’s something that’s been of great interest to me and helped shape part of why I’m here this expansive opportunity,” she said.
Lawver explained that the new fit-for-purpose product helps the company meaningfully expand into a new population. The company can also learn from this launch to inform future ones.
“It’s the first big step in moving beyond an insulin population where we know historically that is what society and the medical community still associate CGM with, really with type one intensive insulin and now with basal and insulin,” Lawver said. “Now, this is the first step in moving beyond that.”
Lawver also pointed out that this marks an important strategic move for the Dexcom portfolio strategy. The new sensor gives the company an opportunity to “be really differentiated,” she explained.
“We don’t believe that one size fits all,” Lawver said. “We don’t believe ‘good enough’ is good enough. So, believe we have the greatest health impact and the greatest business impact by having distinct products. … Ultimately, it may be a different product, but our portfolio strategy is to have the right product for the right needs.”
The G7 launch continues to progress
Lawver said early observations demonstrate that the G7 launch “is going really well.” She noted that it remains early in the process to produce too much quantitative data, but early signs are positive. The company also saw expanded interest from distributors following the CMS changes to CGM coverage.
One noticeable difference came in the form of thousands more prescribers prescribing G7 compared to G6 alone, Lawver said. The company also recently crossed the line where the majority of new prescriptions involve G7. Lawver called these “encouraging signs” for this stage of the launch.
“We’ve had time to enhance, tweak and optimize G7,” Lawver said. “We feel extremely good about the performance of G7 out the gate.”
Something both Sayer and COO Jake Leach both said in the past, which Lawver echoed, is that G7 “was designed from the ground up.” Dexcom developed it in a holistic fashion with the intention of creating an outstanding product with accuracy, simplicity and value.
The platform style of technology created with G7 also enables Dexcom to deliver enhancements as time goes on. Lawver said the company already incorporated a “silence all” feature and an SMS startup feature that cuts down startup time. She even started her own father on a Dexcom CGM at 79 years old and said the 13-minute startup time is “pretty phenomenal.”
“We feel really good, not just about the launch, but also about the platform it provides as we continue to enhance, optimize and roll out software improvements that we can link to this hardware platform,” Lawver concluded.
