What's going on podcast listeners? As many of you know, the American Diabetes Association conference 2026 Scientific Sessions was last month in New Orleans. And while I didn't go, I did have press access to interview some folks who are behind the scenes. So, there's going to be more of that content coming, talking about research, talking about product launches. And my first guest from that series for ADA 2026 is Dexcom CEO Jake Leech.
Last year, he came on the podcast for the first time when he was chief commercial officer. This is his first interview on diabetics doing things as CEO and Jake talks about all the press releases that were associated with Dexcom during the conference. We talk a little bit about G8. We talk about some of the STELLAR research. We talk about some of the indications that Dexcom has now been approved for which will affect how people with type 2 diabetes get access to CGM and the impact of CGM on HbA1c outcomes throughout different people living with type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Really interesting stuff. And we also talk about a story that was one of my favorite stories from this year regarding diabetes. And I always want when we have executives on the podcast, as a person who runs businesses myself, you can never know day-to-day what's going to happen. And sometimes even when you're really prepared for something, surprises will come. So I've taken some of your listener feedback that you've given me about how you don't like the executive interviews that are too scripted or maybe too corporate. So, I asked Jake a question about some Dexcom sensors that were stolen and then attempted to be resold to patients and he had some really cool sound bites from that. So, looking forward to sharing that with you guys. Thanks to Dexcom for allowing Jake the time on the podcast and please enjoy this interview with Dexcom CEO Jake Leech.
Guys, who was MVP of the chat?
ROB FREAKING OUT. WHAT WERE YOU ON?
We need more of that. Okay, very exciting interview today. We're covering some remote coverage from the ADA scientific sessions and Dexcom CEO Jake Leech is here on the show. Jake, welcome back.
Thanks for having me, Rob. It's a pleasure.
So Jake, I actually been given some feedback even like in the last two weeks from some of my listeners that when I do diabetes professional interviews, I am so focused on asking the tactical questions that I don't personalize them as much. So I was like, okay, that's fair feedback. And I thought, okay, well, what better way than an interview with you to, because you're a pro, you've done the diabetes podcast circuit now for a number of years, to steer this conversation outside of like a typical ADA press hit while still hitting our talking points. So, you up for that?
Yeah, sure. Course sounds great.
Okay. So, you were named Dexcom CEO on January 1st of this year after 22 years at the company. Succession is honestly one of the most challenging times for companies. What was your focus for the first 100 days as taking over the lead of Dexcom?
Yeah, it's a great question and something that I've been working on focusing on. The succession planning has been going on for quite a while. It was a very kind of orderly process working with our previous CEO and our board of directors. And I was absolutely thrilled to be the one that gets to lead Dexcom into the future. And my focus, my first 90 days, as we called it, was really around making sure I understood and I knew what I wanted to do, what we needed to change because Dexcom's been a very successful company and has had a very significant impact on the lives of millions of people around the world. But as I've said before, it feels like we're still just getting started. And one of the things about the stage of company we're at is we're continuing to scale very rapidly in terms of everything. The number of products we make, the number of sensors, the number of patients we serve, the number of patients we support and we need to continue to enhance that experience. And so I basically right at the beginning of the year rolled out three key initiatives for the company. And it was around making sure we have the best glucose sensing solution for all users. Whether it's the patient who uses the product, it's the prescriber prescribes it, the payer that pays for it, the healthcare system that delivers it, like all of that. We need to be the best. And one of the keys there was we got to make sure we're listening to our customers and we're getting all that feedback. The other thing too is we wanted to set the standard in experience. That was the priority number two, setting that standard, making sure that we are always enhancing that experience and we are the best at it because that really will drive brand preference for Dexcom, but also retain customers. And the third one is expand our international market share. We've been very focused in the United States for many years, been the market leader there for a long time, but there's many more people around the world that could benefit from Dexcom CGM. So we're rapidly expanding internationally both in the markets we are currently in and then also expanding to new markets and driving coverage and access around the globe so more people can benefit.
Yeah, thank you for that. And I think my next question I have prepared that really dives into that first point which is listening and we're also going to talk a little bit about scale and the number of patients that Dexcom is trying to serve and grow towards. But let's start on that listening side of things because it was recently announced this week a Dexcom customer advisory council. It's people with diabetes, type 1, type 2, some HCPs, CDCES's, and then some of our fellow diabetes creators and diabetes content creators on there. And so having publicly announced council, I felt like was pretty novel. I think that there's probably patient feedback councils of different kinds and HCP feedback councils, but to have one like published on the website and do the release, I felt that was unique. How did that come about? Was that something right away on the listening side that we just need a trusted group of advisors who's going to be honest with us about what's good and maybe what's not.
That's exactly what it was, Rob. It was we have a lot of channels that we use today for feedback from customers, but it felt like it was the right time to get together a group of diverse, as you mentioned, it was a diverse group. Lots of different perspectives. That was key. We wanted diverse perspectives and we also wanted people who had networks so they knew others that they could also collect feedback from and then provide to us. Really it was a listening session for us. We started it early this year. It was one of the first things I did as the new CEO and we met multiple times over the past 5 months and what we felt was really important was listening and getting the feedback and there was many things that we were aware of and many things that were new information for us which was quite helpful. And the important part was then publishing what we found, what we talked about, and then what we're doing, the commitments from Dexcom to continue to enhance this experience for all users. And I think it's not just sugar coating anything. We all like to be told what we do well, but we also really wanted to hear where we could improve and you need customers to be able to provide that. And so the council I think was a unique space. It was an externally facilitated conversation. So we were able, I felt, to get really raw, unvarnished feedback which was absolutely what we wanted. And we've already started taking action on the newer learnings in there. And we'll continue to do that and we'll continue with the council. This wasn't a one and done. We'll continue to evolve it over time and make sure that it's one of our key mechanisms for listening.
And I imagine you go into that with some sort of idea of what's going to come back. Was there anything positive or negative that sort of surprised you or that you learned and were immediately like, 'Oh, yeah, we definitely can fix that.'
Yeah, there was a lot of little things that were like, 'Oh, yeah, we can fix that. We can fix this.' And some of it was the part that was the biggest surprise though, I guess, was there's still a lot of opportunity for us to better communicate things to users. There's been a number of times where we've communicated something and it's either misinterpreted. Our intent is always to improve users' experience, reduce the burden of managing diabetes, but sometimes we do things that not on purpose but ultimately add to a user's burden. And so we never want to do that on purpose but sometimes it happens in the way that we show up. And so there are a lot of little learnings but the biggest one was this one around communication and just making sure that we are communicating to users about the enhancements we're making to the products. We make a lot of enhancements to the product. We don't always talk about them. And we've made a tremendous number of enhancements to G7 for the time that's been on the market and we talk about some of them, but we have more opportunity to make sure that that information is conveyed to our entire user base. That was really good feedback from the council that I didn't realize how things were being misinterpreted at times. And so we want to be really clear with our communication. We'll continue to improve that over time.
Is some of that just you guys are closer to it than everyone else? And maybe it
Is a big part of it, Rob. Yeah. Yeah, we're closer to it. We talk about it every day, every hour, every minute. And as we scaled and we've grown, a lot of what we're working through is the scale of our business and how it's growing and the number of, we're now serving millions of customers every day. That's very different than it was years ago. And you have to continue to adapt how you do that to make sure people are getting that best experience. And so it was quite helpful.
Yeah. And you talk about the millions of customers that you're serving every day and growing that. And I want to go back to maybe two or three weeks ago. In my experience, leading small businesses, small companies, there are still some moments that really make you scratch your head and just be like, 'What the hell?' Like I had grand plans of what I was going to accomplish today and now I've got to focus on this. So you guys announced or it was announced in May 2026 that some product which was intended for destruction was stolen and then sold by third parties. And I was reading your quotes in those articles and it seemed like it was something that you definitely took very seriously but were also sort of personally upset about. And when you're serving millions of customers, those moments like that derail your day. How do you approach those and what was your response, even just personally, when you heard that news?
Yeah. I frankly I was really upset because I felt betrayed by whoever it was that stole it. There's an investigation going on. I can't really comment exactly but betrayed by that part of the system. That product should never ended up in the hands of users. And when we started to see it, we were like how in the world did that happen? And so we quickly investigated, quickly called the FDA, let them know what was going on, worked closely with them, and ultimately had to do a field action to make sure customers, that was the number one thing, customers who had this product don't use it, we'll replace it for free, and also make sure those that perpetrated the crime see some justice. It was surprising like you said. When you're running a company, you don't always know what you're going to be working on, and that was certainly a surprise for us. Product that was diverted from recycling into the market and being sold to users. And so we figured out the farm source, the company that was doing it, and then how they got the product, and all that's kind of being sorted out right now. But yeah, I was definitely not happy, I'll tell you that.
Yeah, I guess some days you're leading earnings calls, other days you're like chief detective. You just never know what you're going to encounter when you're leading a company.
You don't know. Yeah. But in the end, I think we were able to contain it. We were able to make sure users got the word out. One of the things we actually did was, the council, we communicated to the council about it too, to make sure they were able to get the word out across their networks as well. So I think that was a benefit as well.
