Q4 Insights:
Senseonics, working with its commercial partner Ascensia Diabetes Care, continued to rebuild its implantable continuous glucose monitor (CGM) business in the fourth quarter and predicted the upswing in sales will continue in 2023.
The fourth quarter sales were still below the level hit in 2019, back when Senseonics was partnered with Roche on the Eversense CGM in Europe. Revenues grew year over year but Robert Schumm, president of Ascensia, which began distributing Eversense in 2022, told analysts on a conference call that there was “softer demand” for the CGM than expected over the second half of the year.
In the U.S., demand was affected by “a little bit of ambiguity on pricing.” Eversense now has “favorable Medicare coverage” and a “very clean path to reimbursement,” Schumm said, but the pricing only took effect at the start of 2023. Ahead of the pricing change, there was uncertainty and demand softened.
The situation in Europe is different. Roche used to distribute Eversense in Europe, under the terms of a 2016 deal, but handed responsibility to Ascensia in 2020. As Schumm tells it, Ascensia is still impacted by the user base that Roche built.
“Germany has been a little bit more of a challenge,” Schumm said. “The original user base that we inherited was more skewed toward patients who are on automatic insulin delivery. We've seen some attrition among some of those users. We, however, see the bigger opportunity with the multiple daily injector population, so one of the things we're needing to do in Germany is to pivot that a little bit.”
Forecast:
Senseonics expects global net revenues of $20 million to $24 million this year, representing growth of 22% to 46% over 2022. The company set out longer-term targets on the call with analysts, forecasting that sales will roughly double each year in the near term, rising to $40 million to $50 million in 2024, and $100 million to $120 million in 2025.
Ascensia aims to capture 5% of the CGM market by 2027 to grow global Eversense sales to more than $500 million.
