Dive Brief:
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Walmart has begun selling One Drop’s glucose meter kit and supplies at hundreds of stores, the digital health startup said Tuesday.
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The kits stocked by Walmart feature a Bluetooth glucose meter, lancing device, carry case, test strips and lancets. Buyers will also gain access to One Drop’s diabetes coaching service for one year.
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One Drop’s offering, which targets both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes, overlap with products and services sold by companies including Livongo.
Dive Insight:
One Drop began as a mobile app designed to enable people with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes to log and share data in 2015. Fueled by a successful crowdfunding campaign, One Drop expanded into physical diabetes devices the following year, building a kit around a Bluetooth glucose meter based on FDA-cleared technology from AgaMatrix.
One Drop now provides the glucose meter as part of a kit featuring a lancing device, test strips and lancets. Customers can either just buy the kit or add a subscription service. Subscribers receive test strips and lancets every three months in the post.
Customers also have access to a mobile app and diabetes coaches. The app pulls information from One Drop’s glucose meter, Apple HealthKit or a Dexcom account and uses the data to predict how an individual’s blood sugar levels will change over the next four hours.
Companies including Livongo and Omada Health also provide connected glucometers and ship test strips. Despite the competition, One Drop has succeeded in getting its product in front of consumers. Apple started stocking One Drop products in some U.S. stores earlier this year, building on a history of selling the devices online. One Drop also partnered with Amazon in March.
Getting the devices into “hundreds” of Walmart stores will give One Drop a chance to reach far more Americans. That mass-market, consumer-focused approach is baked into their strategy.
"We're meeting people where they are,” One Drop CEO Jeff Dachis said in a statement.
One Drop raised $40 million last month to support its growth plans. Bayer led the financing round and partnered with One Drop in the process. Together, Bayer and One Drop plan to expand use of One Drop’s platform beyond diabetes to support the pharma company’s work in areas including cancer, cardiovascular disease and women’s health.
