This week, medical gadget large Abbott introduced its plans to accumulate Bigfoot Biomedical. The deal just isn’t that shocking on condition that the 2 firms have been collaborating for greater than six years, but it surely reinforces the regular tempo of digital innovation within the diabetes care house, analysts mentioned.
The deal was introduced on Tuesday and is anticipated to shut within the third quarter of this 12 months. Monetary phrases weren’t disclosed.
Based in 2014, Milpitas, California-based Bigfoot sells a “good” insulin pen cap, which collects knowledge from a person’s steady glucose monitor (CGM) to assist them calculate the suitable dose.
“All too usually, individuals with insulin-requiring diabetes are both forgetting to take their insulin or, after they do take it, are taking a suboptimal dose. Moreover, some people who find themselves already on a number of each day injections of insulin and utilizing a CGM have challenges of understanding what to do after they see their CGM studying,” Bigfoot CEO Jeffrey Brewer mentioned in an interview.
Bigfoot’s insulin administration system, referred to as Bigfoot Unity, seeks to resolve these issues by rapidly turning diabetes knowledge into a transparent and dependable dosing suggestion proper on the insulin pen cap. The corporate’s objective is to create a world “the place expertise frees individuals from the burdens of dwelling with insulin-requiring diabetes,” Brewer added.
The system is designed to be paired with Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 2 CGM, and Abbott’s gadget stays the one CGM to be built-in with Bigfoot Unity. Bigfoot’s system makes use of data from Abbott’s CGM to calculate the suitable dose for the affected person and shows this data on the insulin pen cap, together with when the final dose was taken.
Bigfoot and Abbott started engaged on this integration in 2017, and the Bigfoot Unity system obtained FDA clearance in 2021.
Now that the 2 firms are planning to take their partnership a step additional by way of an acquisition, Brewer mentioned they’ll make diabetes administration much more customized and correct.
“Again in 2017, we chosen Abbott as our CGM associate due to the efficiency of their product and, simply as importantly, as a result of they shared our imaginative and prescient to supply easy, reasonably priced and easy-to-use instruments for individuals with diabetes. The proposed acquisition will give Bigfoot and Abbott the chance to proceed to innovate collectively round that shared imaginative and prescient and to speed up the rollout of Bigfoot Unity, which is now obtainable within the U.S. via the pharmacy channel,” he declared.
Abbott can present the size essential to convey Bigfoot Unity to as many diabetes sufferers as attainable, Brewer added.
Jared Watkin, senior vp of Abbott’s diabetes care unit, agreed with Brewer’s assertions. He identified that Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre portfolio is essentially the most extensively used and reasonably priced CGM on the earth.
“The deliberate acquisition of longtime associate Bigfoot Biomedical additional expands our presence in diabetes care and helps our efforts to develop linked options that assist make dwelling with diabetes simpler. We’re bringing collectively two leaders in numerous areas of diabetes care — CGM and insulin dosing assist — to make diabetes administration much more private and exact,” Watkin defined.
Most business observers have been unsurprised to listen to of the deliberate acquisition, given Abbott had been collaborating with and investing in Bigfoot for years.
For example, Cheryl Cheng — CEO of Vive Collective, an funding platform for digital well being firms — mentioned the acquisition “is a pure evolution” of the 2 firms’ ongoing relationship.
She thinks the deal will profit each entities. For Abbott, this acquisition helps lengthen the capabilities of the Freestyle Libre gadget and helps sufferers go from monitoring to taking motion. The mix additionally furthers Abbott’s mission to create extra customized options for sufferers, Cheng identified. As for Bigfoot, the deal may also help it obtain scale, she declared.
“Hopefully the mixture of those two market leaders will create a powerful platform for added funding in AI-driven options, extra affected person engagement instruments and scientific instruments,” Cheng mentioned.
Echoing Cheng, Aaron DeGagne — a healthcare analyst at Pitchbook — referred to as the deal “a logical subsequent step.”
He identified that whereas phrases of the deal weren’t disclosed, Bigfoot was final valued at $165 million in 2018. Even when its acquisition worth is on the lower-end of the $100-$200 million vary, the deal would symbolize “a notable exit in digital well being” — particularly within the context of lackluster M&A and IPO exit exercise in the course of the previous 12 months or two, he added.
“This deal reinforces that diabetes tech is a sizzling space of funding pushed by higher, easier-to-use expertise, enlargement to a wider inhabitants set —akin to non-insulin taking diabetics — and a rising need for customized vitamin steerage. Moreover, latest knowledge has proven better CGM use for sufferers taking GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic,” DeGagne defined.
In a analysis observe, Marie Thibault, managing director at BTIG, agreed that the deal is sweet information for innovation within the diabetes house, given it might speed up adoption of the Bigfoot Unity system amongst sufferers who want a number of each day injections to handle their situation.
Whereas Bigfoot’s system remains to be within the comparatively early phases of its business rollout, the startup has been successful contracts with pharmacy profit managers, payers and group buying organizations, she famous. The corporate’s capability to draw clients is due partially to latest real-world research, which have been offered at conferences akin to these held by the American Diabetes Affiliation, that present improved glycemic management in sufferers utilizing Bigfoot Unity, Thibault identified.
“If reimbursement is extra extensively established within the U.S., the built-in ecosystem might drive some share shift from aggressive techniques towards Libre amongst these on a number of each day injections keen on good pens. We acknowledge GLP-1s stay a long-term danger for the diabetes tech house, however proceed to see a job for CGMs and insulin pens. We see this acquisition as a vote of confidence from ABT sooner or later want for insulin,” she said.
Picture: AndreyPopov, Getty Pictures
