If you’re a digital health startup looking to make an impact, it makes sense to tackle diabetes. More than 34 million American adults — over a tenth of the population — live with the metabolic disorder, which costs the nation roughly $400 billion every year.
The earliest crop of digital diabetes management startups — including Onduo, Omada Health, Virta Health, and Livongo — made their mark by combining remote monitoring with virtual diabetes coaching. That approach has proven successful: They are among the most capitalized diabetes startups in the U.S., and Livongo was acquired by Teladoc last year in an $18.5 billion deal. But the disease has also been a natural on-ramp to build health care systems for other chronic conditions, and even general well-being.
“We got our start in prediabetes because we saw the metabolic space generally as tailor-made for a digital-first approach,” said Sean Duffy, co-founder and CEO of Omada Health. With the growing use of continuous glucose monitors, wrapping blood sugar data into apps and using it to inform virtual coaching is just a hop, skip, and a jump away from a full mobile health ecosystem.
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