Now on Bloomberg Radio, we take stock of healthcare. The issue of drug pricing has been at the forefront, certainly in the political realm for the last few months. We're living in a very special time in the history of the pharmaceutical industry. Let me three percent of all biotechts that start actually get a drug approved. It's a very hard thing to do. Bloomberg taking stop healthcare and focus on Bloomberg Radio. Yes, healthcare in focus and diabetes in focus.
Turning our attention now to those people who at some point may have to inject themselves up to twenty eight times a week with insulin. Here to tell us more about some of the alternatives is John Timberlake. He is the president and the chief executive of Valeritas, and he joins me now. John, thank you very much for being here.
Thank you, thanks for having me. Well, you know, just before we get into the details of some of the v GO system, maybe just tell people a little bit about your background, because you've been involved in diabetes even before you came to Valeritas in two thousand six. That's correct. I have spent the last twenty five years focused in
the air diabetes. I spent fifteen years within the company pharmaceutical called Santa Fee responsible for um the diabetes portfolio from the phase one up through and on the market. And I came to Valaritas ten years ago because I saw this technology as something really could net an unmet need for the Type two patient with diabetes. All right, let's talk about this technology. This is the v GO technology and it is wearable on the skin and it's
just about two inches long. What it actually does it do? So the Vego is a very simple, easy to use product. It is a wearable patch that is um completely mechanical. There's no electronics, there's no batteries. The patient can put this on their on their body, leave the house and have all the ins and they need for the day. So it delivers a constant flow of insulin throughout twenty
four hours. And then when the patient eats, they can very discreetly and easily give themselves additional insulin around meal times by simply clicking buttons on the device through their clothing. So they could be sitting at a restaurant or the cafeteria. And there's a really big social stigma with people taking type or Type two is taken insulin in public because
society has kind of blamed them for having type two diabetes. Well, tell people a little bit more about it, like what is it that causes type two diabetes and what is the addressable market. So diabetes, type two diabetes is really as a multi factory disease. It's both the combination the body not using the instant the body can make and the body not making enough insulin. So it's a very large, unfortunate opportunity because there's so many people who have type
two diabetes. In the United States alone, there were twenty two million people who have diabetes, six million of them are type twos. Are taking insulint through injections of these patients do not reach the reach their seem to control. And so that's a huge unmet need of more and happening in patients who could benefit from a product like the Vego. The Food and Drug Administration has given approval for Vigo. Correct, that's correct. The Vego is commercial rights.
It's it's the only product approved by the FDA that has a mechanical delivery of incident for both background and meal time insulin. It's also approved by the European Committee. And what kind of efficacy. Have you found in UH in patients that use this versus let's say, injectable insulin. We've demonstrated quite a breath of clinical studies showing the patients who are taking injectable insulin when they go to
the vego, they significally lower their glucose. They do that with less prescribed insulin, so that allows them to actually get better results using less insulin and actually saving the payer system money because of that. Um it's very interesting. Of those six million people who take insulin, A large study asked these patients who are prescribed meal time insulin and sevy two percent said they never take ins and out of the house, So it's a huge problem for
these patients. By wearing the vego underneath their clothing and simply being able to click buttons when they eat gives them the ability to control their diabetes better. What about the cost of vigo their beauty. The good thing about the vego is this is a single use, fullly disposable product, so it's not classified as a durable medical equipment, which is very very important for the reimbursement. Therefore, it's actually reimbursed, distributed and fulfilled more like a drug at the pharmacy.
Ninety five percent of our product was fulfilled the pharmacy. Therefore, those patients go to the pharmacy with the prescription and they pay a monthly co pay. There's no large deductibles and co insurance like there is with durable equipment and durable insulin pumps. A couple of questions, so about the company, I know you did an alternative initial public offering, I believe back in May correct. What is an alternative public
offering and why did you go that route? So essentially, an alternative public offering is essentially a company merging in with an already public company and then taking over and using that company as a public company. So you're right, Laritas now is a public company. We are traded with the chicker v l r X, and we did that because we're a company now that's at a commercial stage. We're an execution stage. We have regatory approval in the US and in um Europe. We are producing this at
commercial scale. All we have a large clerical, steady data that's been published, and we have good reimbursement. So really it's the right time to access the public markets to help support the growth of the company, And what about distribution. Who's you have a partner or you're doing that. We do know we're actually doing this ourselves today yet. But because the product is distributed through the pharmacy channel, we basically can provide that product to any pharmacy in the
country through the wholesalers. I want to thank you very much for coming in and sharing this information with us, right, Thank you very much. John Timberlake is the president and the chief executive of Valeritas talking about a new wearable device. It's called Vigo. You wear it on the skin under clothing. It's about two inches long, and it fills you with the insulin that you need all day long. This is taking Stock. I'm pim Fox, and this is Bloomberg.