What’s Going on with the Dexcom G7?

What’s going on with the Dexcom G7? Patients (and traders) wish to know!

Dexcom has been hyping the subsequent technology of its groundbreaking steady glucose monitoring (CGM) expertise for years. While there’s nonetheless no official launch date, we’ve been paying shut consideration for a very long time. Most of the info beneath comes courtesy of Dexcom’s Chief Technology Officer, Jacob Leach, who kindly spoke to Diabetes Daily in late 2020.

Here’s what we all know now:

The Size

Look at the photograph above. The G7 is tiny! Even if nothing else about the expertise have been improved in any means, that slim profile could be nicely price trying ahead to.

But that’s not all…

Bye-Bye Transmitter

Here’s the different large change: you’ll be capable of kiss that transmitter goodbye. The G6 system requires two items of hardware, a sensor that attaches to the pores and skin and lasts 10 days, and a transmitter that snaps into the sensor and works for about 6 months. But the G7 is an all-in-one gadget, sensor and transmitter each, and it’s absolutely disposable. You insert the little sensor onto your physique after which toss it in the trash 10 days later. It ought to make switching sensors an entire lot simpler.

Image supply: Dexcom

Warm-up Time

Here’s one other large enchancment – the 2-hour warm-up time can be lowered to a mere 30 minutes.

The Accuracy

The G7 must be a minimum of as correct as the G6, and testing means that it might be even higher. In reality, the G6 itself has been getting an increasing number of correct since its authentic launch, as Dexcom refines its algorithms and updates its software program. There’s no motive to anticipate Dexcom to cease focusing on steady accuracy enchancment.

Calibration will work the similar means it did with the G6: it’s optionally available. The G7 is factory-calibrated and is supposed to work completely straight out of the field. Users that choose to calibrate with their glucose meter will nonetheless be free to take action.

The Wear Time

The Dexcom G6 is barely authorised for 10-day put on. However, many customers attempt to circumnavigate this by hacking their sensor to get extra days out of it.

Dexcom could be very conscious of this reality, simply as it’s conscious that its main competitor, the FreeStyle Libre 2, is authorised for 14 days.

While in the previous Dexcom has promised to push its sensor in the direction of 14 days, it appears like the G7 will debut with a 10-day put on time, similar to the G6 did. Maybe that may change in the future – Chief Technology Officer Jacob Leach instructed us that “the platform is designed to extend the wear beyond 10 days,” so, in concept a minimum of, later G7 releases may lengthen the put on time. But at the second it seems that the firm isn’t glad with the G7’s reliability after 10 days.

The Cost

The excessive price of the G6 is actually considered one of the main sticking factors with sufferers. The G6 is a reasonably penny when you’re paying out-of-pocket, and there’s nearly no telling how a lot your insurance coverage supplier will pitch in.

Dexcom has publicly promised that the G7 will, at worst, be priced equally to the G6, however we don’t have a precise quantity but.

I can discover a couple of causes to be optimistic about the value:

• The less-expensive FreeStyle Libre is offering severe competitors for Dexcom, and Dexcom might notice that it’ll have a tricky time if its personal product is considerably costlier.
• Dexcom has made it clear that its final goal isn’t sufferers with sort 1 diabetes, however sufferers with sort 2, a a lot bigger market. Insurers nearly assuredly won’t cowl the gadget for individuals with sort 2 if the value stays so excessive.
• Dexcom has invested closely in manufacturing and distribution, which is able to hopefully lead to economies of scale that profit its prospects.

Dexcom has additionally labored exhausting to get its product stocked in pharmacies and lined as a pharmaceutical, versus sturdy medical gear, a change that advantages many sufferers whose plans cowl one class extra generously than the different (and likewise makes it simpler to accumulate).

Sensor Insertion

Dexcom said that the product can be even simpler to use than the G6, and that the applicator can be a lot smaller than the G6, decreasing the environmental footprint.

The Adhesive

Many individuals with diabetes battle with CGM and insulin pump adhesives – there’s a whole Facebook group, with over 15,000 members, devoted to troubleshooting rashes and adhesive allergy symptoms from CGMs.

The G7 makes use of a unique adhesive than the G6, and the firm reviews that in testing it’s receiving fewer complaints about pores and skin irritation than ever.

Integration with Other Systems

The G6 is already a pacesetter in system interoperability, and is the solely product that has been authorised to be used with hybrid closed-loop insulin supply programs. All of these relationships will stay in place with the G7. It will even combine with the Apple Watch. In addition to integration with the Tandem’s Control IQ and Insulet’s OmniPod system, integration has additionally been developed for Companion Medical’s InPen in addition to over 25 commercially-available apps. This is a fast-changing panorama, however Dexcom has all the time been forward of the curve in securing relationships with different good diabetes gadget makers.

The G7 can be appropriate with each Android and iOS smartphones, and also will work with a receiver for these sufferers preferring to not use a smartphone to trace their blood sugar.

But When Will the G7 Be Released??

Here’s the large query. The launch of the Dexcom G7 has been pushed again far past authentic projections. One fully comprehensible motive was the intrusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, which interrupted many medical trials. The firm additionally rapidly tailored its expertise to help in-hospital glucose monitoring for COVID sufferers, which can have quickly diverted the enterprise’ consideration from its longterm product improvement.

In late October, Dexcom introduced that its pivotal American and European medical trials have been accomplished, and that it might “soon formally seek FDA clearance for its next-gen G7 system.” Optimistic traders pushed the inventory value up by 9% in a day. At that time, the firm nonetheless hoped to launch its new CGM in Europe earlier than the finish of 2021, though it now seems that they missed that deadline.

The easy reality is, we simply don’t know. It appears doubtless that the G7 can be launched in some unspecified time in the future in the first half of 2022, however so long as the firm itself stays tight-lipped, we solely have hypothesis.

Wall Street remains to be optimistic that Dexcom will make an enormous splash in 2022. And there’s no motive to assume that the G7 launch, each time it comes, can be something lower than huge. Dexcom has opened a brand new distribution heart in Mesa, Arizona, along with a number of automated manufacturing areas, and is now constructing a brand new manufacturing unit in Malaysia.

The launch of the G7 could also be dragging on longer than anybody anticipated, but when the new CGM is pretty much as good as the firm says it’s, it must be price the wait.

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