Eric Benjamin - Chief Product and Customer Experience Officer at Insulet

[00:00:01] Rob Howe: Welcome to Diabetes Innovators, a special series from Diabetics Doing Things covering the 85th Scientific Sessions. We're held in June 2025 in Chicago, Illinois. You're going to hear interviews from leaders of tech companies, people with diabetes, diabetes creators, researchers, and more on this podcast. If you want to learn more or hear more from this series, visit DiabeticsDoingThings.com slash Diabetes Innovators. Enjoy the episode. episode. Okay, let's talk about our partners who help support this podcast. Today, I'm going to talk about Type Zero, which is typezerohealth.com. It is a business run and founded by a person with type 1 diabetes, John Jensen, who's been on this podcast a couple of times. I've been using this product since 2018. I started training for a half marathon, which I ran in Dallas in December 2018. I was looking for a workout supplement, a pre-workout that I could trust not to spike my blood sugar. 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We've gotten to introduce over 100 campers with type 1 diabetes to diabetes legends like Lauren Cox and Gary Forbes and more. We've got three clinics coming up this year, June 7th in Dallas, a very special event at Friends for Life conference on July 11th. And then later in September, we're going to be returning to Denver. If you're looking for more information on the events themselves, you can visit diabeticsdoingthings.com slash events. And if you're interested in learning more about the Diabetes Legends Foundation, which we formed in 2025 to better support our ongoing initiatives and creating opportunities for kids with diabetes to have a great day with diabetes via one of our clinics, please connect with us and fill out a form on our website. diabeticsdoingthings.com. All right. Well, it's been really great to just chat with you behind the scenes. And I think we're going to have ourselves a good conversation. Let's just go ahead and start with your name title and the company you work for. And we'll kind of go from

[00:04:47] Eric Benjamin: there. Great. Hey, Rob, it's a pleasure to be here. It's been a great weekend at ADA in 2025 here in Chicago. I'm Eric Benjamin, Chief Product and Customer Experience Officer for Insulet. I have the privilege of leading the teams that develop our products, bring them to market and

[00:04:59] Rob Howe: serve customers globally. Well, Eric, thank you so much for being here and it's been great to chat with you as we get this interview set up. So let's get to it. We're here at the 85th ADA Scientific Sessions. The big news this week from Insulet is coming into the announcement of the integration of Dexcom G7 into the Omnipod 5 app for iPhone, which I know patients in our community were very excited about. What makes you excited about bringing this launch to market? The

[00:05:24] Eric Benjamin: integration of G7 into our iOS app was a huge moment for Insulet last week. We're really proud to bring that to customers. The ability to have phone-controlled, pod-based, easy-to-use automated insulin delivery system, it's what we hear in the market. That's what customers want. They want to be able to put on a pod, have the peace of mind that it's delivering automated insulin delivery, and then have the freedom to be able to control that pod from their mobile phone. I saw an amazing post on social media describing it as a little bit of normalcy that somebody didn't know they needed. And, you know, incredibly, the way that shows up, we actually, I just left a session before coming to meet you, Rob, where we showed some data that time in range actually went up for teenagers and young adults who used Omnipod 5 and used iOS. We don't know exactly why, but presumably because it's just that much easier to take care of diabetes. And that is our favorite kind of innovation, where the ease of use produces better outcomes and better quality of life.

[00:06:17] Rob Howe: They've got the phone right there in their hand already, you know, and they're able to, you know, engage with the technology in a way that's native to them, right? precisely. That's exciting. I mean, when you think of like the big innovations in the diabetes space,

[00:06:28] Eric Benjamin: like there's a lot of exciting news coming out of ADA like there is every year. And what comes to mind for you and your team? We're working on four things, Rob. So the first is we continue to add features and functionality to Omnipod 5. Over the last three years since we launched, we've added multiple sensor integrations. We've added G7 and Libre 2 Plus. We've added phone control for iOS and Android, and we've added quality of life features. We're going to keep doing that for Omnipod 5. We are currently working on Libre 3 Plus, and we've got other quality of life enhancements coming as part of the Omnipod 5 platform. That's the first super exciting thing that we're working on. The second is we're working on some data products. So we have been in limited launch for both an HCP data platform, so a platform that lets healthcare providers that care for folks with diabetes have more streamlined conversations so they can spend more time talking to the patient about the issues that really matter to patients. In addition, those data products provide some insights back to users to help folks take better care of themselves. Most excitingly, we also have two next-generation systems in clinical development. In March, we began the pivotal study for our next-generation hybrid closed-loop system. That'll include a lower set point, some quality-of-life features, and more personalization behind the scenes so that folks can get better outcomes with doing less. And finally, we've begun clinical feasibility studies for a fully closed loop system. We've done initial testing in both type 1 and type 2, and we'll be doing a second set of studies later this year in type 2. We are committed to getting the fully closed loop for everybody who lives with diabetes. And is that a bi-hormonal closed loop or what does that look like? We're going to start with single hormone. So when we look at what's possible with today's insulins, we see a lot of opportunity to do true fully closed loop. So no inputs for insulin delivery into the system. We know we can do that for type 2 based on the feasibility data that we've seen.

[00:08:20] Rob Howe: So we're going to start there and then we're going to keep pushing the boundaries of technology as we strive towards fully closed loop for type 1 as well. I know we were talking about prior to recording that, you know, the purpose of this is to give patients a little insight as to what goes behind the scenes. And so to me, as a person living with diabetes, to hear that, you know, a person with type 2 on a fully closed loop system could, you know, basically take all of the thinking out of it.

[00:08:42] Eric Benjamin: That's a pretty exciting thought to consider. It's a really exciting thought to consider. One of the things that we think deeply about is how do we dramatically simplify diabetes and how do we make the innovations that do dramatically simplify diabetes broadly accessible? In our minds, those two things go together. So what gets us excited about the notion that somebody who lives with type 2 diabetes who needs insulin can have a fully closed-loop system where they're not having to interact with it for any of their insulin delivery, that offers a paradigm shift in who can can actually engage with the technology. We're fortunate Omnipod 5 is really affordable, low out-of-pocket costs. Most of our customers pay less than $30 a month. 95% of folks who have insurance have coverage for Omnipod 5. And we're constantly working to get that higher and higher

[00:09:30] Rob Howe: because we want innovation like fully closed loop for everybody to be broadly available in the hands of people who live with diabetes. Yeah, I'm a recently converted LinkedIn guy. So I connected with you prior to the interview. In a post earlier this spring, you talked about how your team removes barriers in addition to simplifying life for people with diabetes. So it's interesting to hear your perspective on that. But also like, that's a cultural shift for you and your team. So, or not a shift necessarily, but that's a cultural approach for you and your team and a lens. Like what would surprise patients about how Insulet and Omnipod and your teams approach,

[00:10:06] Eric Benjamin: you know, diabetes innovation and thinking about patients? I think the two things that might surprise people are just our absolute obsession with usability and broad accessibility and how those come from a place of true patient centricity. So if I can just tell a quick story, Insulate was founded by a gentleman by the name of John Brooks. He had a young son who lived with type 1 diabetes. John was struggling with his son's care. John was a venture capitalist in the Boston area. And one day on a flight back from the West Coast, he and his business partner were talking about how hard it was to be a father of a child with type 1. And they, you know, they said, look, tube pumps have challenges. They're complex. My three-year-old wants to go swimming with his friends. The tubes get stuck on things. Injections are a pain. We don't want to be chasing our young son to give him injections. And literally on the back of a couple of airplane napkins, they sketched out what would become Omnipod, a fully disposable, waterproof, tubeless insulin delivery system where there were no injections and kids could be kids. That ethos of there has to be a better way to do this for people with diabetes is truly what fuels innovation at Insulet. And so when we think about bringing that into the present day, we do tens of designs of iterations of features like activity mode and Omnipod 5, getting it to where you just set time. And when it's over, you don't have to put yourself back into automated mode. You just go back because it's one tiny decision that we didn't want people to think about. Similarly, in how we designed the core automation experience, we wanted maximum understandability of what influenced insulin delivery, which is why the system adjusts insulin just on the basis of learned TDI, no user input, and target. Because what we want folks to be thinking about is, where do I want my target glucose to be? That sort of obsession with usability turns out to take a lot of work. So we are fortunate to have tons of passionate people who are willing to do that iteration to deliver that simplicity for customers.

[00:11:58] Rob Howe: Thank you for telling that story. I didn't know like the inception story behind Omnipod. It's always interesting, you know, as an entrepreneur, people who see a problem in the world and, you know, dare to try to change it. And also that entrepreneurial culture, it's difficult to scale. And so it's cool to see that you guys are exploring multiple ways to approach new problems and innovation and that sort of back of the napkin sketches still that ethos sort of still remains at the company. Is that how the teams operate at scale? And, you know, what's it like working on product and customer experience within a group like that?

[00:12:30] Eric Benjamin: It's a blast. I'll maybe tell one more story that just illustrates, you know, how that all comes to life. When we were doing the early development of Omnipod 5, there were a lot of skeptics that we could get the algorithm onto the pod. It is an extraordinary amount of software that has to be on a tiny electronics footprint. You know, look, it's more than you might get in a watch you buy at Disneyland from an electronics footprint, but it's a lot less than any of our modern day electronics because it's a three-day disposable. And so, you know, there was sort of real debate about did we have to put the algorithm, the AID decision-making on the controller? And had we done that, the implication was people are going to have to have their controllers with them all the time. And, you know, it's an overstatement to say we had a war among our engineers about which of these was going to be the better approach. It was, we spent probably six months prototyping both of them before we could convince ourselves, yeah, we have to do the harder thing here because people are going to leave their controllers behind. Kids are going to go out on their own and they need to be in AID between the pod and the sensor that they're wearing. And so that notion that we're going to continue pushing the boundaries and doing the hard thing that's better for patients is very much a part of our culture. It makes it actually a pretty fun place to be. It's a blast, candidly, to solve hard problems that have enormous impact on people's lives. And the feedback that we hear most when people join Insulet is that is two things. We are a authentically mission-driven organization to our core. And you walk through the hallways, you see photos of the patients whose lives we've changed. All of our marketing materials are people who really use the product. They want to share their story. And that, you know, is who we are as Insulet. And the second thing is we work hard to improve the lives of people with diabetes because there is just still a massive amount to do to deliver the innovation that people with diabetes deserve.

[00:14:14] Rob Howe: I really like the story you shared about solving for diabetes in real life, because even like today leading up to this interview, things change and you've got to be able to pivot and move and live your life. And, you know, a pod maybe will fail or you may forget supplies or you may have a stressful situation that you weren't prepared for. And your therapy has to work for you in those moments, too.

[00:14:33] Eric Benjamin: Yeah. And, you know, actually, that brings up another point of just how hard we work on quality and reliability. We were talking before the interview about just various moments of scale in our journey. And today we make tens of millions of high quality pods a year. We are relentless about tracking down small failure rates because at small failure rates, many people's lives get touched. And so, you know, we are just relentless about that. And funnily enough, this at ADA over the last couple of days, I heard a really inspiring story of somebody at a partner company who wears Omnipod 5 climbed Mount Denali. And he was on his bucket list to do it. And he showed us photos of his bag of diabetes supplies that he had to carry with him, probably cost him an extra 10 pounds on the climb. And he celebrated that at the end, he had all these extra pods that he didn't need because every single pod that he used over 18,000 feet for the two to three weeks of the climb worked perfectly. And those are the kinds of stories that hundreds of people behind the scenes at Insulet are working really hard to make happen for customers every day.

[00:15:35] Rob Howe: I definitely can relate to coming home with a bag full of diabetes supplies that I didn't need and kind of like wiping the sweat off my brow. Like, great, didn't need to worry about these. But that's incredible, like people with diabetes capacity to test themselves and to push themselves and do things that they've always wanted to cross off their bucket list. And with an extra 10 pounds of diabetes, that's a lot of extra weight for a trip up Mount Denali for sure. And really cool to be able to be on the top of that. And I think look back and see all that they've done to accomplish that goal.

[00:16:05] Eric Benjamin: For sure. And we just celebrate being a tiny part of that journey and being able to provide the peace of mind and the technology to help them do it.

[00:16:12] Rob Howe: Well, thank you for your time today and for being adaptable, even as our calendar wires kind of got crossed on this. But a really pleasure speaking with you today. And thank you for giving our listeners, patients, people living with diabetes and caregivers a little insight as to what's happening here at the largest diabetes conference here in the U.S.

[00:16:31] Eric Benjamin: Rob, absolute pleasure. Thanks for the conversation. We're committed to continue to innovate for customers and love doing it.

[00:16:38] Rob Howe: Yeah, well, thank you very much.