The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes

What’s going on with the Dexcom G7? Patients (and investors) want to be aware of!

Dexcom has been hyping the next generation of its groundbreaking continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) technology for years. While there’s still no official unfasten date, we’ve been paying close attention for a long time. Most of the information below comes courtesy of Dexcom’s Chief Technology Officer, Jacob Leach, who kindly spoke to Diabetes Daily in tardy 2020.

Here’s what we know now:

The Size

Look at the photo above. The G7 is tiny! Even if nothing else about the technology were improved in any way, that slim profile would be well worth looking forward to.

But that’s not all…

Bye-Bye Transmitter

Here’s the other big change: you’ll be capable to kiss that transmitter goodbye. The G6 system requires two pieces of hardware, a sensor that attaches to the 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 device, sensor and transmitter both, and it is fully disposable. You insert the little sensor onto your body and then toss it in the trash 10 days later. It ought to make switching sensors a whole lot simpler.

Image source: Dexcom

Warm-up Time

Here’s another big improvement – the 2-hour warm-up time will be reduced to a mere 30 minutes.

The Accuracy

The G7 should be at least as accurate as the G6, and testing suggests that it may be even better. In fact, the G6 itself has been getting more and more accurate since its original release, as Dexcom refines its algorithms and updates its software. There’s no reason to expect Dexcom to stop targeting continuous accuracy improvement.

Calibration will work the same way it did with the G6: it’s optional. The G7 is factory-calibrated and is meant to work perfectly straight out of the box. Users that prefer to calibrate with their glucose meter will still be free to do so.

The Wear Time

The Dexcom G6 is only approved for 10-day wear. However, many users try to circumnavigate this by hacking their sensor to get more days out of it.

Dexcom is extremely aware of this fact, just as it is aware that its major competitor, the FreeStyle Libre 2, is approved for 14 days.

While in the past Dexcom has promised to push its sensor towards 14 days, it looks like the G7 will debut with a 10-day wear time, just like the G6 did. Maybe that will modify in the future – Chief Technology Officer Jacob Leach told us that “the platform is designed to extend the wear beyond 10 days,” so, in theory at least, later G7 releases might lengthen the wear time. But at the moment it appears that the company isn’t satisfied with the G7’s reliability after 10 days.

The Cost

The high cost of the G6 is certainly one of the major sticking points with patients. The G6 is a pretty penny if you’re paying out-of-pocket, and there’s almost no telling how much your insurance provider will pitch in.

Dexcom has publicly promised that the G7 will, at worst, be priced similarly to the G6, but we don’t have an exact number yet.

I can find a few reasons to be optimistic about the price:

• The less-expensive FreeStyle Libre is providing serious competition for Dexcom, and Dexcom may realize that it’ll have a tough time if its own product is significantly more expensive.
• Dexcom has made it clear that its ultimate target isn’t patients with type 1 diabetes, but patients with type 2, a much larger market. Insurers almost assuredly will not cover the gadget for people with type 2 if the cost remains so high.
• Dexcom has invested heavily in manufacturing and distribution, which will hopefully result in economies of scale that benefit its customers.

Dexcom has also worked hard to get its product stocked in pharmacies and covered as a pharmaceutical, as opposed to durable medical equipment, a change that benefits many patients whose plans cover one category more generously than the other (and also makes it easier to acquire).

Sensor Insertion

Dexcom stated that the product will be even easier to apply than the G6, and that the applicator will be much smaller than the G6, reducing the environmental footprint.

The Adhesive

Many people with diabetes struggle with CGM and insulin pump adhesives – there’s an entire Facebook group, with over 15,000 members, dedicated to troubleshooting rashes and adhesive allergies from CGMs.

The G7 uses a different adhesive than the G6, and the company reports that during testing it’s receiving fewer complaints about skin irritation than ever.

Integration with Other Systems

The G6 is already a leader in system interoperability, and is the only product that has been approved for use with hybrid closed-loop insulin delivery systems. All of those relationships will remain in place with the G7. It will also integrate with the Apple Watch. In addition to integration with the Tandem’s Control IQ and Insulet’s OmniPod system, integration has also been developed for Companion Medical’s InPen as well as over 25 commercially-available apps. This is a fast-changing landscape, but Dexcom has always been ahead of the curve in securing relationships with other smart diabetes device makers.

The G7 will be compatible with both Android and iOS smartphones, and will also work with a receiver for those patients who prefer not to use a smartphone to track their blood sugar.

But When Will the G7 Be Released??

Here’s the big question. The release of the Dexcom G7 has been pushed back far beyond original projections. One entirely understandable reason was the intrusion of the COVID-19 pandemic, which interrupted many clinical trials. The company also quickly adapted its technology to aid in-hospital glucose monitoring for COVID patients, which may have temporarily diverted the business’ attention from its longterm product development.

In late October, Dexcom announced that its pivotal American and European clinical trials were completed, and that it would “soon formally seek FDA clearance for its next-gen G7 system.” Optimistic investors pushed the stock price up by 9% in a day. At that point, the company still hoped to launch its new CGM in Europe before the end of 2021, although it now appears that they missed that deadline.

The simple fact is, we just don’t know. It seems likely that the G7 will be released at some point in the first half of 2022, but as long as the company itself stays tight-lipped, we only have speculation.

Wall Street is still optimistic that Dexcom will make a big splash in 2022. And there’s no reason to think that the G7 launch, whenever it comes, will be anything less than massive. Dexcom has opened a new distribution center in Mesa, Arizona, in addition to multiple automated manufacturing spaces, and is now building a new factory in Malaysia.

The release of the G7 may be dragging on longer than anyone expected, but if the new CGM is as good as the company says it is, it should be worth the wait.

Diabetes Daily

The End of Diabetes: The Eat to Live Plan to Prevent and Reverse Diabetes