The Perfect Disease Diabetes has no cure, and it consumes 1 out of every 7 health care dollars and adds up to over 100 Billion dollars a year. Diabetes is one of the most costly health problems in the US and in the world with a tab of over 100 billion dollars and growing in the US alone. So when a doctor prescribes a drug, we know it will fail eventually. As long as we treat the complications from diabetes, it will continue to be a drain on our healthcare industry, but a boom to our economy. It is a perfect disease from a business perspective because patients need a large and steady supply of drugs, diagnostic and delivery devices and lots of disposables like lancets, syringes and test strips, among other things.
Diabetics are very receptive to any technology that makes life simpler and cheaper.
It is a perfect disease from a medical professionals perspective because once you have a diabetic patient and you build a relationship, you can have that patient for life, who makes an office visit at least 2-12 times a year. There is a race not to cure or prevent the disease but to market products to treat it. Diabetes has attracted an array of players, from large drug makers to companies working on new drugs with milder side effects, to companies wanting to deliver insulin via painless needles, orally or into the lung, to device makers with better insulin delivery pumps, to companies making diagnostic and continuous monitoring tools. The field is crowded but the investment potential is massive and it s tied to solid growth trends, this is big business. That means an additional 5 billion dollars spent every year in just medications and supplies.