Woman with portable signs and application
Source: Signos
On Wednesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the very first glucose monitoring system specifically for the weight loss of STARTUP Signos, establishing a new option for Americans to manage their weight.
Current treatment options to lose weight – popular drugs such as GLP -1 and surgical interventions – are generally limited to obesity patients or a certain BMI. Obesity drugs such as Novo Nordisk‘s wegovy and Eli LillyThe Zepbound can also be difficult to access due to their high costs, their limited American insurance coverage and their limited offer.
But now any patient can buy a Signos subscription to access their system. He uses an AI platform and a standard continuous glucose monitor, or CGM, from Dexcom To provide personalized data and lifestyle recommendations in real time for weight management.
“There is now a solution that everyone can use to help on the weight loss course, and you don’t have to be a number of books to use it. It is available for the average American who needs it,” said Fouladgar-Mercer on Tuesday. “The average person may have five pounds to lose, or others may have 100 pounds to lose. We are here to help them at any time on this trip.”
The obesity epidemic costs more than $ 170 billion a year to the health system in the United States, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Almost 74% of Americans are overweight or obese, according to government data. Signos hopes that it can make a “very large bump in this curve for the improvement of many of us,” said Fouladgar-Mercer.
Customers who register in Signos can choose a three or six month plan, which currently costs $ 139 and $ 129, respectively. The company will send all the CGMs that a patient needs for the number of months in the plan she chooses.
Insurers are not currently covering the weight management system, but the plans are a fraction of the monthly price of around $ 1,000 from GLP-1 in American Signos work with health insurance companies and employers to obtain coverage of the system, the company said in a statement to CNBC. Signos said he expects “this to evolve quickly while the interest in the fight against weight continued to develop”.
The Signos system can be used in combination with GLP-1 or bariatric surgery, said Fouladgar-Mercer. He said patients can also use the system after leaving a GLP-1 to maintain their weight loss.
The CGMs are small sensors carried on the top of the arm following glucose levels, mainly for people with diabetes. This data is sent wirelessly to the application of Signos, which also allows patients to record their food intake and their levels of exercise, among other information used by the AI platform to make recommendations.
In addition to helping people lose weight, the system aims to help users understand how their body reacts to specific foods and exercise models and to make the right behavioral modifications to manage and maintain their weight in the long term.
Signos has not shared how many patients currently use its glucose monitoring system, but Fouladgar-Mercer said that tens of thousands of people have already tried it over time. He said Signos has increased its CGM inventory and software capacity to “manage a fairly massive scale” after approval.