After collecting a long-awaited FDA clearance for the latest generation of its wearable continuous glucose monitor last December, Dexcom has offered a peek into the momentum behind its G7 diabetes sensor.
“While we are still early in our U.S. launch of G7, we have been very encouraged by the initial response,” Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer said on the company’s earnings call with investors this week. “Nearly 1,000 health care providers have prescribed G7 who were previously not prescribing a Dexcom CGM.”
“We’ve added more users in the first quarter than we ever have in any quarter in Dexcom’s history,” added the company’s chief financial officer, Jereme Sylvain.
For the first three months of this year, Dexcom reported revenue growth of 18% compared to the same period in 2022, with total sales topping $741.5 million. U.S. revenue came to $526 million, compared to $451 million last year.
The company expects that rate of growth to continue throughout 2023, with annual revenues landing around $3.4 billion or $3.5 billion—a slight increase over its previous forecasts, boosted in part by recently finalized Medicare coverage for the G7 and other brands CGMs, which was expanded to include people with diabetes using any type of insulin.
“Medicare coverage was established for G7 only days after our Super Bowl commercial, which coincided well with the timing of our launch and came in about a month earlier than anticipated,” Sayer said on the call.
As an example of now being able to offer its sensors to more users at a lower out-of-pocket cost, the new coverage decision includes people with Type 2 diabetes taking only background insulin. Sayer said Dexcom estimates that U.S. population to be around 3 million, with about half at Medicare age.
But while revenues grew, so did expenses, cutting the company’s quarterly net income by about half, to $48.6 million down from $97.3 million. A rise in administrative spending reflected Dexcom’s Super Bowl commercial—featuring star Nick Jonas, who was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 13—as well as the costs of standing up a new production facility in Malaysia, which is slated to begin supporting the global G7 rollout in the middle of this year.