Dexcom, which was also a finalist for MDDI’s Medtech Company of the Year, just reported monumental earnings for 2018 despite growing competition in the continuous glucose monitoring market.

“We achieved [$1.025] billion in revenue in 2018,” Kevin Sayer, president, CEO and chairman of Dexcom said. “That’s up 43% over what we did in 2017 and that’s over $300 million in growth in a single year for us. I can’t tell you how many things have to go right to make that happen, but a lot of them did.”

By all accounts this just shouldn’t be the case. The San Diego-based company has faced significant competition and analysts saying the company could be severely impacted by new product launches in the space. In fact, in September of 2017 Dexcom shares plummeted when Abbott Laboratories gained FDA approval for the Freestyle Libre.

Dexcom’s uphill battle was said to become even more arduous when its rival, Senseonics, (another finalist for MDDI  Medtech company of the year) received approval for a Eversense, an implantable long-term CGM system.

Yet the company was able to beat the odds. Sayer said that part of its success came from the earlier-than-expected FDA approval of the G6 CGM System, a device that is interoperable with other automated insulin dosing systems.

“Our outlook for 2019 is very bullish, we expect another very strong year,” Sayer said. “Our revenue range for 2019 comes in at … $1.175 billion to $1.225 billion. That anticipates growth of 15 to 20%.”