We took a look at Medtronic’s earnings calls and identified what management has been signaling for the past few quarters. For expert intelligence clients, you can read the whole thing here.
For example, the company has seen major growth in its diabetes division, specifically in its continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) business. Medtronic is also getting into more outcomes-based reimbursement agreements, like the one it has with Aetna for its insulin pumps.
For its commoditized hardware products, Medtronic is clearly trying to differentiate itself by getting into the services and diabetes management game. It invested in Glooko’s Series C, a data platform to help providers and caregivers manage diabetes patients remotely. This could help push Medtronic into the digital therapeutics space.
I’m beginning to think that in the long run, every healthcare company eventually just becomes a digital therapeutics company.
Snip, Snip, SNP
At our A-Ha! Conference, CEO of Color Genomics Othman Laraki spoke about what the company was up to, genomics as a whole, etc. In our new podcast episode we dropped some commentary throughout the interview on what’s changed in the genomics landscape since then. It’s better than the below, don’t worry.
When asked about whether CRISPR was overhyped or underhyped, Othman said that it’s overhyped in the short term with people focusing on the specifics of the technology, but underhyped because in 10 years there will be applications we aren’t even thinking about today.
In our most recent CRISPR briefing, we talked about how CRISPR works as well as some of the “out there” projects using the new tool. For example, Mammoth Biosciences is using CRISPR to detect certain diseases by combining CRISPR, a guide RNA, and a reporter molecule. Doing this means theoretically you can drop a saliva sample on paper and it’ll change colors in the presence of certain bacteria and viruses.
Credit Where Credit Is Due
Recently, short-term loan provider GreenSky Credit went public. We dug into its S-1 and business to understand the company, its $4B+ private market valuation, and where it plans to expand to next.
The company started out in home improvement, but one of the expansion areas the company talked about frequently in its S-1 is patient financing for elective healthcare. The bet is that the demand for these procedures increases with the aging population.
“In 2016, we began expanding into elective healthcare, which, like the home improvement market, is a large, fragmented market featuring creditworthy consumers who tend to make large-ticket purchases. We believe the elective healthcare market rivals in size the home improvement market in terms of annual spending volume, based on the number and cost of annual procedures performed…We believe that because of population aging, innovations in medical technology and ongoing healthcare cost inflation, we are well-positioned to increase volume in the growing elective healthcare industry vertical.”
GreenSky is targeting procedures which have large amounts of out-of-pocket spending like cosmetic surgery, hair replacement, and aesthetic dentistry, among other areas. Looking at elective healthcare areas with out-of-pocket spend can give you a sense of where consumer-driven financing innovation will happen first, including point-of-sale loans like GreenSky. If we eventually ever end up with a healthcare system where customer experience matters, be sure to watch these areas for ideas.
