Kevin Sayer
Chairman, President, and Chief Executive Officer at DexCom
Thank you, Sean, and thank you, everyone, for joining us.
2023 was an incredible year for DexCom, and I'd like to start by reviewing some of our key accomplishments. Total revenue grew by 24% on an organic basis, driven by another year of record customer starts. This translates into more than $700 million of organic revenue growth compared to last year, as we built strong commercial momentum through recent coverage expansion and the performance of DexCom's CGM systems.
In 2023, we added over 600,000 DexCom users to our base and ended the year with approximately 2.3 million customers globally. Importantly, we delivered this level of growth again while enhancing scale and efficiency of our operations. A key milestone here was the opening of our Malaysia manufacturing facility around midyear. Production at this site is ramping quickly, and the team is already delivering yields on par with our more established US facilities. This facility will help support our growth and cost ambitions for years to come.
As a measure of our success for 2023, we not only generated $1 billion in Q4 revenue, we also delivered $1 billion in adjusted EBITDA for the year and generated record levels of free cash flow, which is up nearly 70% compared to 2022. By establishing a disciplined cost culture that focuses years in advance, we are striking the right balance of margin progression, while still investing strategically in pathways to support our significant growth opportunities.
From a strategic perspective, 2023 will go down as one of the most transformational years in our company's history. We launched G7 and Dexcom ONE into multiple new markets significantly expanding our global access and advancing key technical and clinical work that will provide the foundation for the future of DexCom. This started with the rollout of G7 in the U.S. in February.
G7 is the most accurate CGM ever launched and the market's reception to G7 has been exceptional. Customers and clinicians have been thrilled with the new form factor, product performance, and ease of use and payers wasted no time establishing coverage as they recognize the clear value proposition that G7 provides. We immediately started to see a change in prescribing patterns once this product reached the market. And this trend became even more pronounced as we completed the largest expansion of coverage in our Company's history.
In mid-April, Medicare coverage went live for people with Type 2 diabetes, using basal insulin only, as well as certain non-insulin-using individuals with hypoglycemia risk. Between this decision and the broad commercial coverage that quickly followed for the basal markets, we have effectively doubled our reimbursed population in the U.S. This has completely changed the market landscape in the U.S. With broader coverage available and a new product that greatly simplifies the prescribing process, we've attracted a sizable new cohort of clinicians to our ecosystem.
In fact, in 2023, we expanded our prescriber base by approximately 40%, and we're not stopping there. We have always known that the primary care channel would become increasingly important as our business evolves. Much of the work our commercial team has done in recent years has been tailored to this market. And we are now seeing the direct result of that effort as more than 70% of our new scripts are being written by primary care physicians. These relationships are not only critical to help us reach the millions of insulin-using individuals who have not yet started on CGM but also the tens of millions with broader Type 2 diabetes, prediabetes, and beyond.
Based on the success of our team in 2023 and the magnitude of these future opportunities, we are excited to continue our investment in our U.S. sales force this year. When we have a presence with prescribers, we win. Now, it is up to us to continue to expand that prescriber pool. We are already seeing more clinicians want to incorporate Dexcom CGM earlier into patients' care plans as they recognize our unique ability to drive behavior change, sustainable outcomes, and greater accountability. This is why we are thrilled to be introducing our newest product, Stelo, later this summer.
Stelo will be the first CGM designed specifically for people with Type 2 diabetes who are not on insulin. Leveraging our leading sensor platform, we have built a custom software experience that is tailored to the needs of this population. Stelo will feature a 15-day wear time and launches a cash pay product while we build our case with payers for broader coverage. With several trials currently underway, we will continue to add to the growing body of evidence demonstrating DexCom's unique ability to drive greater health and economic outcomes for all people with diabetes.
The launch of Stelo also presents a great opportunity to bolster our evidence with a large collection of real-world data as we see the impact this product is having on our customers. We filed Stelo with the FDA in the fourth quarter of 2023, leaving us well on track for our highly anticipated launch this summer. As our product portfolio continues to grow, it provides a greater glimpse into the future potential of our company. We have built a platform technology that we can customize to provide creative solutions for different populations.
Our redesigned software infrastructure is a key component to this, as it enables much quicker iteration and greater connectivity. Connectivity has always been a distinct advantage for DexCom. And with our recent filing of direct-to-watch with the FDA and new G7 pump integrations, we are further advancing this leadership position. We will also continue innovating on our hardware technology, with our current efforts focused on launching an extended wear sensor across all of our product offerings.
As we look at the significant opportunity ahead of us, we are as excited as we've ever been. As I said at our Investor Day this past summer, we are just getting started.
With that, I will now turn it over to Jereme for a review of the fourth-quarter financials. Jereme?