Insulet targets competitive conversions as Omnipod 5 insulin pump nears full launch

Dive Brief:

Insulet expects the company’s Omnipod 5 insulin pump may top the 20% of new patients that historically come from competitive conversions.
Three members of Insulet’s leadership team, including the newly appointed CEO, discussed the limited market release for Omnipod 5 that is now underway during a William Blair conference on Wednesday. The limited release is giving Insulet feedback that is providing “tweaks” needed for the patient onboarding process ahead of the broader launch, executives said.
Insulet is looking to Omnipod 5, which integrates with Dexcom’s G6 continuous glucose monitor, to contribute to a targeted doubling of the U.S. pump market over the next three to five years.

Dive Insight:

The William Blair conference was the first investor event for Jim Hollingshead since he took over as CEO of Insulet on June 1. Flanked by Executive Vice President of Innovation and Strategy Eric Benjamin and Chief Commercial Officer Bret Christensen, Hollingshead let his colleagues field many of the questions while chiming in with comments about his confidence in the new pump and insights related to his time at ResMed.

Many of the questions centered on the rollout of Omnipod 5, which was cleared by the Food and Drug Administration in January and is now undergoing a limited market release. Insulet adopted the release strategy to ensure patients have a smooth transition from its older Omnipod DASH device. Christensen said there are “lots of hoops to jump through” when switching a diabetes patient to another product. In the limited release, Insulet is evaluating self-service onboarding tools designed to improve the process.

“We want people that are used to Omnipod, and have been wearing Omnipod, to quickly upgrade to Omnipod 5 without us having to do in-person training or a lot of paperwork,” Christensen said. “So, we created a lot of tools to enable that. It's going to be really important for us because as we strive to innovate in shorter cycles more quickly, we can't always afford to spend a lot of time on the base, getting them to the latest product. We have to grow the base.”

Historically, competitive conversions have accounted for about 20% of Insulet’s new patients. However, after the event, William Blair analysts expressed confidence that that figure may increase for Omnipod 5 after talking with Insulet management.

“We believe that this has the potential to compound with accelerating [multiple dose injection] conversions for even greater new patient starts, which could help deliver upside to our estimates today,” the analysts wrote in a note to investors. “With Omnipod 5’s limited market release on schedule, increasing physician interest in Omnipod 5 and ramping DTC efforts for the pump planned ‘soon,’ we believe that Insulet remains well positioned for accelerating growth through 2022-plus.”

Insulet’s management discussed the approach to direct-to-consumer advertising at the investor event. Currently, the company expects about one-third of people with Type 1 diabetes can name a product such as Omnipod. Through TV advertisements, the company aims to increase that figure and, in doing so, help the rate of insulin pump penetration among people with Type 1 diabetes in the U.S. increase from about one-third currently to two-thirds in the next three to five years.

The management team also is working to expand the base of potential Omnipod 5 users by integrating its pump with Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre CGM. Benjamin said at the event that Libre 3 “looks like a great sensor”, adding that his team has been “excitedly working on a Libre-integrated Omnipod 5 for some time.”