INDUSTRY INTERVIEW: Abbott Diabetes Care
Ed Whigham
Director of Government and National Accounts
Sales, Abbott Diabetes Care
Ed Whigham is the director of government and national accounts sales for Abbott Diabetes Care. He has a 22-year history with Abbott Laboratories both managing and selling to high level government, hospital and national accounts for the point of care, diagnostics and diabetes care divisions.
Q: Can you give me a little background on Abbott Diabetes Care?
A: Abbott is a global, broad-based health care company devoted to the discovery, development, manufacture and marketing of pharmaceuticals and medical products, including nutritionals, devices and diagnostics. The company employs more than 65,000 people and markets its products in more than 130 countries.
Abbott Diabetes Care is developing products to reduce the discomfort and inconvenience of blood glucose monitoring— introducing systems that are easier to use, require less blood and provide faster results.
Based in Alameda, Calif., we design, develop and manufacture several leadingedge glucose monitoring systems and test strips for use in both home and hospital settings. Among its leading brands are the FreeStyle Lite system, the FreeStyle Freedom Lite system and the Precision Xtra system.
In addition to monitoring systems and diabetes management products, we also focus on educating people with diabetes on how they can make everyday choices to help themselves—and live active, healthy lives.
Q: When did you enter this market?
A: Abbott entered the blood glucose monitoring marketplace with the acquisition of MediSense in 1996. In April 2004, we announced completion of the acquisition of TheraSense, a leader in developing blood glucose self-monitoring devices that require very small blood samples to deliver rapid test results, virtually pain-free. The Thera- Sense acquisition strengthened Abbott’s position in the large and growing blood glucose monitoring market.
Q: What are your primary product lines and what makes them significant in the marketplace?
A: Abbott Diabetes Care manufactures glucose monitoring devices for professional and self-monitoring use as well as a continuous self-monitoring device.
There are two significant reasons Abbott’s products stand out in a crowded field of players. First is that our proprietary technologies and fill trigger mechanism ensure that the user has applied an adequate sample to obtain the most accurate result. Second, the chemical reaction we use to test for glucose ensures that substances other than glucose present in some patients’ blood—Vitamin C, Uric Acid—do not interfere with the accuracy of Abbott’s glucose result, giving the patient more confidence in our result.
Q: What can you tell me about your marketplace market share?
A: Abbott Diabetes Care is number one in market share in the Department of Defense, number one in Indian Health and number two in the Veterans Administration Health System.
Q: When did you start doing business with the military?
A: Abbott was awarded Basic Core Formulary status with our Precision product line in 1998 by the Department of Defense PharmacoEconomic Center and has maintained that status ever since. Our market share has grown since that time from less than 10 percent to almost 70 percent of the beneficiaries receiving blood glucose test strips from a DoD medical treatment facility using Abbott’s products.
We were recently awarded Uniform Formulary Status by the DoD PharmacoEconomic Center receiving awards for two of the four blood glucose test strips—FreeStyle Lite and Precision Xtra—and three of the five meters—FreeStyle Freedom Lite, Free- Style Lite and Precision Xtra. We are waiting to hear on re-award of the Basic Core Formulary.
Q: What are your goals for 2009 and what’s in the future for Abbott and the military?
A: The Abbott line of products continues to be the choice in the military base pharmacies around the U.S. with our share of business growing by almost 5 percent year to date in 2008. Our goals for 2009 are to continue to bring great products, great service and innovation to military beneficiaries because after all, haven’t they earned the best?
We believe we are positioned well for serving the DoD beneficiaries in the future based on our product selection and performance for the patient as well as our dedicated government account managers and customer service organization. We have built an infrastructure around this business to support the patients using our products.
Our dedicated 24-hour government customer service line, our dedicated government account managers and our marketing team understand the needs of the military and strive to meet these needs with continuously updated products and programs.
We are launching our newest product to the government this year, the Navigator. The Navigator is a discrete, continuous monitoring glucose device that provides a glucose result every minute, 24 hours a day and actually shows trends up and down for the insulin-dependent diabetic. This allows the patient to be proactive and react to hypoglycemic and hyperglycemic trends before they become critical.
Abbott is committed to improving the lives of diabetic patients by helping them to better control their glucose levels. We believe our products accomplish this best through accuracy, ease of use and affordability, and after all, our active duty, veterans and beneficiaries have earned the best products and care. ♦