Digital health analysis and consultancy company Research2Guidance (R2G) have just released The Global Digital Diabetes Care Market 2020, the fourth edition of their biannual research report providing comprehensive analysis of the global digital diabetes market.
Diabetes care is one of the most developed and best funded sectors of digital health, with a total revenue of $320 million (€275M) in 2019. Since the last edition in 2018, it has grown substantially and the current report predicts a compound annual growth rate of 37%, leading to an estimated market revenue of over $1.5 billion (€1.3bn) by 2024. This surge will reflect an increase in the global addressable market, which Ralf Jahns, managing director of R2G, estimates will reach 180 million people by 2024, more than 20% of those with diabetes.
Over recent years, the market has burst the limitations of purely app-based technologies focused on disease management, expanding into a whole ecosystem of care that connects patients, healthcare professionals and providers through, for instance, automatic blood glucose or continuous glucose monitoring systems (BGMs and CGMs), links to real life coaches and integrated pumps and activity monitors that can be constantly updated to a hospitals population management system.
A major area of growth is in the expansion of diabetes care providers into other comorbidities such as hypertension, heart conditions and mental health to create comprehensive chronic care platforms. “Their service offering modules, which include coaching, curriculum-based programmes and all those connected devices, are also available to serve behaviour change in patients who suffer from other conditions as well as diabetes,” says Jahns. These comprehensive services open up better care to those with complex conditions, whilst simultaneously advancing digital care in other sectors outside of diabetes as these services start to be offered independently.
Although the report is based on data up to 2019, Jahns also discusses with MobiHealthNews the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on the digital diabetes market. “The impact is on both sides, on the positive as there are advancements in remote care and solutions supporting self management, but also on the negative, especially in the US, as there were so many layoffs, meaning you could lose access to solutions that your employer supported. On a strategic level, it will be the integration of health components into service offerings that will be the key development in digital diabetes care.”
In terms of the market outlook, Jahn is certain it’s looking up: “It’s still the beginning, there will be growth in all indicators: awareness will grow, the user number will grow, revenues will significantly grow as well.”
WHY IT MATTERS
These innovations are influencing other digital care sectors, as Jahns explains to MobiHealthNews in an exclusive interview: “The diabetes market is the leading digital care market globally. The way digital diabetes companies are organising their services, are closing partnerships, are putting together their teams, other companies and other segments are looking to the diabetes market and have started to copy their business models and ways of operating.”
THE LARGER TREND
This report comes shortly after research into how diabetes self-management tools lead to healthier lifestyle choices. The growth predicted by the report is also mirrored by swathes of recent investment into diabetes digital care companies such as Lark Health, One Drop and Podimetrics.
