Abbott Sees Triple Growth Drivers in Diabetes TechAbbott Sees Triple Growth Drivers in Diabetes Tech
There are three interesting growth drivers that could move the needle in 2025 for the company’s continuous glucose monitoring business.
January 22, 2025

Abbott's continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) platform continues to shine bright as the company's Libre CGM contributed $1.8 billion in sales in the fourth quarter. Looking ahead, CEO Robert Ford sees three big growth drivers in the space.
Ford said during the company's earnings call Wednesday, he continues to think there is under-penetration in the intensive insulin-using patient population.
"If you look at the U.S., there's still 25% of that segment that are not on CGMs, and if you think about that international, it's more like 50%," Ford said.
But on top of that, the CEO sees three key areas that he expects will accelerate CGM growth for Abbott in 2025.
One of those areas, he said, is expanding reimbursement coverage for the basal insulin population.
"We continue to see, with the publication of more clinical evidence, you see more and more markets move towards expanding basal coverage," Ford said, noting that there are a couple of markets where Abbott is the only company that already has that coverage. "So these are great opportunities for us where we've got this head start, and we'll keep driving that. So I think basal is a big bucket of growth."
Another area of growth for Abbott in the diabetes realm involves partnerships with insulin pump companies and connectivity strategies with insulin delivery systems. Last year, Abbott and Medtronic announced a collaboration in which Abbott will design an integrated glucose monitoring system based on its FreeStyle Libre technology that will connect with Medtronic's automated insulin delivery and smart insulin pen systems. Abbott will design the CGM and Medtronic will sell the device.
"And I think you'll see throughout this year several announcements on connectivity in different geographies, and that gives us the opportunity to penetrate, albeit a smaller segment, but be able to penetrate that segment and take share," Ford said.
Finally, the third area of growth for Abbott is acceleration of the over-the-counter non-diabetes application with the launch of the company's Lingo CGM.
"We've launched it in a restricted number of U.S. cities, but I think now that we understand what it takes to be able to drive adoption with this completely different consumer segment that we'll probably be expanding this and expanding this more nationally here in the U.S. and potentially looking at other areas internationally," Ford said. "So, I think the Lingo launch is going very well. In several areas, I think, it surpassed some of my expectations, especially regarding reorder rates. And I think those continue, and I think that's going to be another leg of the stool so as to say on growth."
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