Weight reduction has all the time been huge enterprise, however it’s exploded of late resulting from surging demand for Ozempic, Wegovy and different new diabetes and weight problems medication.
Within the first half of 2023, gross sales of Ozempic and Wegovy rose by 58% and 363%, respectively. That is after quarterly prescriptions for these sorts of GLP-1 remedies, which mimic a hormone within the intestine to suppress an individual’s urge for food, elevated 300% between early 2020 and the tip of final yr.
However as customers and companies pour extra money and sources into tackling the weight problems epidemic, which prices the U.S. greater than $170 billion a yr, drug builders aren’t alone in arising with progressive options.
Signos, a five-year-old startup, is taking an strategy that does not contain drugs.
The corporate is utilizing off-the-shelf steady glucose displays, or CGMs, and offering real-time weight-reduction plan and train suggestions based mostly on a person’s readings. CGMs are small sensors worn on the higher arm that monitor glucose ranges, primarily for individuals with diabetes. The data is wirelessly despatched to a smartphone, permitting the person to higher stop emergencies.
Signos makes use of CGMs constructed by Dexcom. The startup has its personal app that exhibits customers how their physique responds to particular meals, what causes their glucose to spike and when they need to train to get the most effective outcomes for weight reduction.
On Tuesday, Signos mentioned it closed a $20 million funding spherical led by Cheyenne Ventures and GV, previously referred to as Google Ventures. Dexcom Ventures additionally contributed to the financing. Signos mentioned it’s going to use the contemporary capital to proceed its analysis into metabolic well being and to increase its crew, which is at the moment round 45 individuals.
“Whether or not you may have 5 kilos to lose or 100, we wish to be sure that we’re in a position to assist everyone,” Sharam Fouladgar-Mercer, Signos’ co-founder and CEO, informed CNBC in an interview.
Prospects who join Signos can select a one-month, three-month or six-month plan. With the half-year plan, customers pay $143 a month, which incorporates all the dear CGMs they will want throughout that point. The corporate declined to share particular particulars about how many individuals are at the moment utilizing its platform.
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned the lengthy timelines are designed to draw customers who’re severe about their weight-loss journey. Moreover, the sensors themselves have a protracted put on time. The Dexcom G6 and G7, the newest gadgets, can measure glucose for as much as 10 days. Signos at the moment helps the G6 and can quickly work with the G7 as nicely.
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned Signos is utilizing Dexcom’s CGMs as a part of a scientific research accepted by an institutional evaluate board designated by the U.S. Meals and Drug Administration to watch biomedical analysis involving actual individuals.
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned he created the corporate in 2018 partly due to his personal battle to handle weight all through his life. He skilled as an athlete and performed hockey in school, however he mentioned he seen how meals typically affected him in a different way from the way in which it affected his teammates.
He mentioned he all the time felt that, in an effort to know a person’s metabolism, there was a “crucial part” lacking, and it had been nagging at him for 30 years.
Signos helps customers perceive the appropriate determination to make within the second, however they’ll go “behind the scenes” and study as a lot in regards to the science as they’d like, Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned. Customers also can combine sleep information, coronary heart price information, and train information from their Apple Watch to personalize their profile much more.
“As soon as they belief the system works they usually perceive the methodology, they’ll simply comply with the actually fast, here is what I do, here is what I do, here is what I do,” Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned. “And that is the way you get behavioral change.”
Although Dexcom primarily develops its CGMs for sufferers with diabetes, the corporate can be working towards broader purposes. As an example, subsequent yr it is releasing a brand new product meant for individuals who aren’t taking insulin. Equally, Abbott Laboratories, which dominates the worldwide CGM market, is hoping to carry its first consumer-facing CGM, known as Lingo, to the U.S. subsequent yr, including personalised teaching with suggestions about weight-reduction plan, sleep and train.
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned Signos has extra information factors than “anyone does on this planet for non-diabetics.” He added that for the reason that firm constructed its first product nearly 5 years in the past, it has been in a position to concentrate on fine-tuning its know-how.
“I do not wish to incorrectly set expectations,” Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned. “I believe lots of occasions, it is like, ‘Oh, misplaced X kilos in X days.’ That is not what we’re attempting to perform. It is actually, how will we put you on a sustainable journey? And that journey is just not going to be performed in two or three days.”
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned Signos can work nicely alongside Ozempic and Wegovy from Novo Nordisk and different GLP-1 remedies. Novo Nordisk’s share value has quadrupled since 2018, and the corporate is now essentially the most priceless in Europe.
Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned GLP-1 medication are a “highly effective instrument” that may assist individuals jump-start weight reduction, however it may be difficult to maintain weight off in the event that they cease taking the medicine. Platforms comparable to Signos may also help to strengthen and keep a more healthy life-style over time, he mentioned.
Finally, he mentioned, he needs individuals to make use of Signos to discover ways to make higher selections that work greatest for his or her our bodies.
Signos, Fouladgar-Mercer mentioned, can use know-how and information “to drive behavioral change, after which wrap that each one in a system that basically is targeted on driving and fixing this greatest downside we’ve got in America, which is weight.”
WATCH: Novo Nordisk stops Ozempic trial early after indicators of success
