Dexcom, the locally based maker of continuous glucose monitors for diabetes patients, is projecting billion-dollar growth into 2030, and San Diego stands to profit.
The medtech company invested more than $500 million in San Diego last year, Dexcom CEO Jake Leach told the Union-Tribune on Friday, and that number is expected to grow as the company does.
Leach outlined plans to double Dexcom’s customer base by the end of 2028, while debuting the new “step-change” continuous glucose monitor, G8.
“No one has ever scaled a business like this before in medtech, in terms of the number of patients we’re serving and the speed at which this category is growing,” said Leach.
Since 2020, the company quadrupled its user base from 900,000 users to 3.5 million.
Dexcom has a strong market share serving those with Type 1 diabetes, “but there are 600 million people with diabetes worldwide,” Leach told investors at the company’s investor day in Arizona on Thursday.
A majority of people living with diabetes have Type 2 and could benefit from a Dexcom device, he said.
If the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services approves Dexcom continuous glucose monitors for Type 2 coverage, Dexcom could serve an estimated 12 million more Americans, the company told investors.
Dexcom is pledging double‑digit expansion, telling investors it aims to grow revenue by at least 10% every year, reaching roughly $7.4 billion in annual revenue by 2030
“Whether you have diabetes, you have prediabetes, or maybe you’re just trying to lose some weight, I think all of those things are unique customer journeys … and they are what we’re in the process of addressing,” Leach said.
Dexcom is in the process of proving to providers and insurers the efficacy of the device through a large clinical trial, slated to be presented on June 6 at the American Diabetes Association conference in New Orleans.
The study aims to prove that the continuous glucose monitor will lower A1C, sustain behavior changes and potentially lead to a reduction in other medication, thereby substantiating that the monitors are an effective treatment for Type 2 diabetes.
“This is a very important landmark study,” Leach said. “The results from the study will be a strong anchor point for us both here in the U.S. and abroad for expanding the coverage.
Dexcom expects a Medicare coverage decision by the end of this year. In the meantime, the company is working to submit the new G8 monitor to the FDA by 2027.
Jereme Sylvain, Dexcom’s chief financial officer, didn’t give an exact date but alluded to a launch in late 2027 or early 2028.
The new monitor is meaningfully different from past iterations.
The G8 is 50% smaller, and instead of just tracking sugar levels, it uses a new chip and smarter software to “learn” from your body and adjust in real time.
“People stop using CGMs because they don’t feel like the glucose signal is reliable,” Leach said. The new G8, which Dexcom has been developing for the past decade, addresses that reliability by calibrating the device to each user’s physiology.
The company is also working on implementing other measures of metabolic health by monitoring ketones and potassium — though that technology is still a ways out.
“Ketones will be part of the G8 platform. They’re just going to come afterwards,” said Leach. “I think there’s still quite a bit of clinical work that needs to be done to determine how to appropriately measure and appropriately communicate readings to users.”
In the past few years, the company has sustained strong growth, and with these new announcements, revenue is expected to escalate.
Last year, Dexcom sales grew by almost 15% to more than $4.6 billion. As revenue continues to grow, Dexcom expects to keep investing heavily in its San Diego-based research and development team — around 12.5% of revenue over the next five years.
Last year, the company invested $500 million in San Diego. Next year, Leach projects even more spending in the region.
If Dexcom reaches its projections, San Diego could see over $800 million in investment through 2030.