Abbott Announces Collaborations, Reinforces its Commitment Towards Access to Holistic Diabetes Care

• Abbott provides holistic diabetes care to 8 million people through partnerships
• Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre enables users to check their glucose readings more frequently, which is associated with greater time in glucose range⁴
• Innovative technology in diabetes management has the potential for better outcomes and minimizes complications³

Mumbai, 8th February 2022 (GNI):  Abbott, the global healthcare leader, announced new collaborations with key health-tech partners BeatO, Sugar.fit, PharmEasy, GOQii, 1MG, Zyla Health, Healthifyme and Fitterfly to usher a new era of holistic diabetes management care. Through these collaborations, Abbott aims to offer glucose monitoring solutions to 8 million people living with diabetes, of which approximately 6.5mn users can access through PharmEasy and 1MG. The company is focused on maintaining effective glucose level along with remote consultations, diabetes-specific coaching, and dietary plans.

India has the second-highest diabetes population in the world¹. Recent studies show that healthcare for non-communicable diseases has been interrupted in India, with up to 87% of people with diabetes reducing visits to their doctor due to the pandemic, and less than half possessing a blood glucose measuring device at home.^2. For adults with type 2 diabetes on intensive insulin, studies showed average HbA1c drop from 8.9% to 8% with at least three months of using sensor-based devices, which continuously monitored glucose.^[1] Through these collaborations, Abbott endeavors to enable personalized lifestyle and therapy interventions, so people with diabetes can achieve holistic glucose management goals.

The pandemic led to the deployment of disruptive technologies in the healthcare industry leading to breakthroughs in patient care. For example, sensor-based monitoring devices and virtual consultations are helping people manage glucose levels at home. Availability of wearable devices such as Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre have enabled patients to continuously monitor glucose levels and provide real time insights to doctors. Abbott has also partnered with BeatO, a digital health platform to launch a holistic, data-based continuous glucose monitoring program for better diabetes management. The program provides users access to targeted diet, help in controlling diabetes and lifestyle counselling from experts based on the data recorded by FreeStyle Libre.

Kalyan Sattaru, General Manager of the diabetes care business at Abbott, said, “Continued research and strategic partnerships have simplified and strengthened diabetes management over the years. New diabetes technology has paved the way for precise and informed decision making. Connecting our partner brands’ products with the FreeStyle Libre portfolio will enable users to capture their glucose data easily as part of an integrated system.”

Gautam Chopra, Co-founder & CEO, BeatO commented, “Leveraging Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre with BeatO’s app ecosystem will give our users precise data, along with actionable insights to effectively manage and control blood glucose levels. We are continuously striving to make diabetes management more effective and convenient for our members and this program is a step in the same direction.”

Addition of Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre to BeatO’s current offerings prompts diabetes educators and nutritionists to provide more patient-specific and targeted diet counselling to users. For members who had uncontrolled diabetes, this has resulted in 90% of them now having their blood glucose levels within a time in range of more than 75%.

Madan Somasundaram, Co-founder and CEO, Sugar.fit said, “At Sugar.fit, our mission is to empower people with chronic conditions to live better and healthier lives and reverse chronic metabolic disorders. Technology is combined with science and human coaching to help millions of Indians manage and reverse diabetes through a highly consumer-centric data-driven digital health experience ” stated in the press release.

Sugar.fit’s program, launched in June 2021, has helped 90%+ of its users see drastic improvement in sugar levels with most users seeing an average drop of 1.9% in HbA1c levels, just within 3 months. This was in addition to sustained weight loss and significant reduction in medicines for patients with more than 8% HbA1c levels.