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May 8, 2020
 
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This quarter Dexcom raked in $405 million in revenue, compared to $280.5 million in 2019’s Q1. This represents a 44% increase year over year (YoY), and beats the company's revenue goal by $46.7 million. Dexcom attributes its success to its growing user rate.

The gross profits from Q1 were $258.7 million. However, operating expenses have increased, coming in at $215.4 million in 2020 Q1, versus $176.4 million in Q1 2019. Part of this is attributed to the pre-preparations of scaling up the G7 manufacturing line.

Dexcom did address the coronavirus – noting that it plans to launch up a new service that will give patients who have lost their insurance up to two 90-day supplies of CGMs for only $45 each. The company has also worked with the FDA to temporality allow for the use of its G6s in a hospital setting during the coronavirus in efforts to limit physical interactions with providers.

However, the company foresees the coronavirus impacting physician office visits, which in turn could mean new patients starting the system could be impacted. So far, the company reports its supply chain and manufacturing operations are in good standing.

As for the future, we got a hint that Dexcom may be looking at its product going into hospitals beyond the pandemic.

“Our commitment to the agency [the FDA] is [that], with this opportunity, will gather as much data as we can, and we're going to share what we learn, and see if we can, in fact, accelerate that path and get this device approved for use as a glucose-monitoring technology in the hospital environment rather than, than what they're doing with finger sticks,” Kevin Sayer, CEO of Dexcom said on the call.


Peloton Interactive has been making the most of COVID-19, and doesn't expect its uptick in business to slow down during the coming months. 

In this week's earnings call, the connected fitness device-maker announced a 66% YoY revenue increase for the third quarter of its fiscal year, for a total of $524.6 million. Net loss was $55.7 million, or –$0.20 per share. The company ended this quarter with more than 886,100 "Connected Fitness Subscribers" (a 94% increase), over 176,600 "paid Digital Subscribers" (64% growth) and a total membership of more than 2.6 million. 

Looking ahead, the company said that it's expecting quarterly revenue of $500 million to $520 million (128% YoY growth), and fiscal year revenue from $1.72 billion to $1.74 billion (89% YoY growth). Subscribers to its Connected Fitness service are projected to fall between 1.04 million to 1.05 million for the full fiscal year. 

"Over the past year, we've seen steady gains in member engagement as we've expanded content verticals and launched new member experiences," John Foley, CEO and cofounder, said during the company's earnings call. "With so many members now under stay-at-home orders, this quarter saw an even larger gain than expected. Our Connected Fitness Subscribers logged 44.2 million workouts with us in the quarter, up from 18.0 million workouts in the same period last year, representing 145% YoY growth.


Apple eked out some revenue growth for the second quarter of its fiscal year, reporting a 1% YoY revenue increase ($58.3 billion total) driven in part by a $6.3 billion "quarterly record" performance from its "Wearables, Home and Accessories" business. Of note, 75% of those purchasing an Apple Watch during the quarter were reportedly new to the product. The iPhone's $29 billion revenue, meanwhile, was a 7% decline YoY. 

In his comments to investors, CEO Tim Cook acknowledged the outbreak's disruption of Apple's product supply, as well as the closure of its storefronts and a lessened demand for its products as a result. But he also put a spotlight on some of the company's COVID-19 technology efforts: a symptom-checking website and app that has been visited more than 3 million times and installed nearly 2 million times, respectively; the in-progress contact-tracing project with Google; and increased use of the Apple Watch and its ECG feature as a remote patient-monitoring tool among healthcare providers. 

"Now, when you step back and tally all this up, when you consider all the ways COVID-19 has touched Apple, our customers and the way we work, this may not have been the quarter it could have been, absent this pandemic," Cook said during the earnings call. "But I don't think I can recall a quarter where I've been prouder of what we do or how we do it."

Apple did not issue any guidance for the upcoming quarter due to COVID-19 uncertainty. 


As Fitbit waits for Google to acquire it, the company’s revenues have taken a tumble. According to its Earnings Summary, its total revenue came to $188.16 million this quarter, which means that it missed its goal by $80.39 million. This represents a 30.8% decrease YoY for the wearable company. The company reported $54.9 million in gross profits, which is down from last year’s $89.45 million.

The company noted that the coronavirus pandemic negatively affected the company’s first quarter of 2020. Specifically, the company said that the decrease in retail activity and retail store closures due to the virus impacted sales, especially in the Asia Pacific region. It predicts that revenues will take a significant hit YoY.

However, this quarter the company did release its Fitbit Charge 4, and added more content to its Fitbit Premium subscription service.

Last November Google announced its plans to purchase Fitbit for $7.35 per share in cash, or a total of roughly $2.1 billion. That deal still appears to be going forward, as Google would have to pay Fitbit a termination fee of $250 million if it decides to back out, according to the document.

“For the full year 2020, we expect devices sold and revenue to decline significantly compared to full year 2019 as a result of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic discussed further below, as well as due to the timing of our new product launches,” the document read. “We expect smartwatches to grow as a percentage of revenue compared to the prior year. We expect growth in our higher margin Fitbit Premium and Fitbit Health Solutions revenue streams in 2020 compared to 2019. We expect research and development expenses to increase for the full year 2020 over 2019 as we grow our investment into the expanding wearable device market, which we anticipate will be partially offset by a projected decrease in sales and marketing and general and administrative expenses, with the exception of higher costs related to the Merger Agreement with Google.”


Livongo Health announced strong quarterly results headlined by revenue growth and a record number of client launches.

Total revenue for the first quarter of 2020 came in at $68.8 million, a 115% YoY increase that exceeded the company's early April expectation of $65.5 to $66.5 million in total revenue. GAAP net loss was $5.6 million (–$0.06 per share), compared to a $14.4 million loss (–$0.79 per share) reported last year.

The company brought on 380 new clients in the first quarter to reach 1,252 total clients, a 44% increase over last quarter's 804. The company now reports 328,510 members enrolled in its Livongo for Diabetes program, compared to 164,168 in Q1 2019 and nearly 223,000 in Q4 2019. These increases bring the estimated value of Livongo's agreements to $89 million – just a few million shy of doubling Q1 2019's $48.1 million estimated value of agreements.

Total revenue for the second quarter of the year is projected to fall between $73 million and $75 million. Livongo is expecting 70% to 78% revenue growth for the full year, equating to a range of $290 million to $303 million in total annual revenue. This is a bump over the company's prior guidance of $280 million to $290 million.

The company also used its earnings report to announce a new contract with the Government Employees Health Association (GEHA) that will see Livongo's diabetes, hypertension and diabetes-management products made available to federal government beneficiaries covered by GEHA.


Teladoc Health enjoyed "remarkable growth" across revenue, visit volume, service offerings and new client partnerships, leading the company to raise projections for the rest of the year.

YoY revenue in the first quarter grew 41% from $128.6 million in 2019 to $180.8 million in 2020, comfortably topping the company's February projection of $169 million to $172 million. Total visits during the same periods rose 92%, from 1,063,000 to 2,045,000, an increase largely driven by domestic visit numbers. The company had projected somewhere between 1.4 million and 1.6 million total visits at the beginning of the quarter.

The company continues to operate at a loss, this time to the tune of $29.6 million for the quarter (compared to $30.2 million in Q1 2019). EPS came in at –$0.40, not quite hitting the –$0.37 to –$0.34 range it projected in February.

Teladoc generally expects revenue and call volume to remain higher than pre-COVID-19 levels, although the gradual decline of stay-at-home orders and low copays will likely see many of the company's new patients return to traditional healthcare providers.

With that in mind, Teladoc is expecting Q2's total revenue to fall between $215 million and $225 million, with total visits in the range of 2.3 million to 2.4 million. EPS are projected to be between –$0.28 and –$0.23. For the year, total revenue is projected to sit between $800 million and $825 million. The company is anticipating eight million to nine million total visits, and an EPS of –$1.27 to –$1.13.

"The investments in capacity made during the month of March have positioned us to meet the increased demand from existing members as well as the new members we are in the process of onboarding," CEO Jason Gorevic said during the company's earnings call."

 
Scientist holding vial COVID-19 test
 
 

Just a few hours ago the FDA greenlighted the first home-collected saliva sample for COVID-19. Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory, which already landed an EUA in mid-April for its test, can now expand its efforts to include test kits for home collection.

Patients do so using a specially designed collection device. This sample is then sent off to the Rutgers Clinical Genomics Laboratory in a sealed package. 

“Authorizing additional diagnostic tests with the option of at-home sample collection will continue to increase patient access to testing for COVID-19. This provides an additional option for the easy, safe and convenient collection of samples required for testing without traveling to a doctor’s office, hospital or testing site,” FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, said in a release. “We will continue to work around the clock to support the development of accurate and reliable tests, as we have done throughout this pandemic. The FDA has authorized more than 80 COVID-19 tests and adding more options for at-home sample collection is an important advancement in diagnostic testing during this public health emergency.”

This comes less than a month after the FDA granted LabCorp an EUA for its COVID-19 RT-PCR test, which let patients collect at-home sample collection using Q-tip-style nasal cotton swabs and saline. Users would then send this sample off to a lab for testing. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

Today the U.S. has the most coronavirus cases in the world totaling more than 1.2 million, according to the World Health Organization. Medical workers and public health officials have pushed for more testing. This morning CNN reported that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the U.S. needs to double its testing efforts. 

EUAs have meant that more and more testing kits are getting on the market. This latest development is yet another move to increase the convenience and availability of testing in the U.S. 

THE LARGER TREND 

Coronavirus home-testing and sample collecting kits have had a rocky road. In mid-March a slew of companies announced home sample-collecting services for molecular testing. 

Shortly after, these companies were told to pump the brakes when the FDA clarified its policy and warned consumers that no such tests had yet been authorized. Several of these companies said that the FDA’s guidelines were ambiguous, but still pulled their product offerings and worked on adjusting them to meet the guidelines. 

 
 
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By HIMSS Insights
 
There is a renaissance of wearables in digital healthcare. More and more of them, many AI-empowered, are finding their way into serious clinical trials, thus contributing to medical evidence and ultimately better patient care. But with data comes responsibility: The question of how to design a digital healthcare data space that respects the privacy of individuals while at the same time providing maximal medical benefit is more important than ever.

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Now and in the weeks ahead, HIMSS20 Digital will be featuring an array of presentations that had been planned for the 2020 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exhibition – enabling registrants to view them on demand. We'll also be showcasing stories that highlight technology's ongoing and essential role in combating the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. This is a pivotal moment for professionals across the global health ecosystem. So check back here regularly for must-have insights about new technologies, trends, policies and other healthcare innovations.
 
 
 
 
 
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