Eric Benjamin, Omnipod's COO, Live from ADA
Insulet Details Omnipod 5 Update, Omnipod 6, and a Type 2 Closed-Loop System
Speaking on the show floor at the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, Insulet chief operating officer Eric Benjamin laid out what is shipping now, what is coming in 2027, and where the company is heading next.
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At the American Diabetes Association Scientific Sessions, Insulet used its booth to walk through a near-term Omnipod 5 update, preview its next flagship pod, and describe a separate system the company is building first for type 2 diabetes. Eric Benjamin, the company's chief operating officer, sat for an interview with the Juicebox Podcast to detail each one.
An Omnipod 5 update is rolling out now
Benjamin said Omnipod 5's lowest selectable glucose target is now 100 mg/dL. He pointed to company data presented earlier at ATTD indicating that about half of Omnipod 5 users are not set to the lowest target, and said moving a target from 120 down to 100 was associated with as much as five percentage points more time in range. According to Benjamin, the lower target was shown to offer tighter glycemic control without an increased risk of hypoglycemia.
He attributed the gap partly to caregivers of children, who he said sometimes choose higher targets out of fear of hypoglycemia, and to adults in care settings receiving less guidance on adjusting the system. Insulet said it is working through clinicians, its field teams, direct customer outreach, and a newly launched data platform called Omnipod Discover to make clinicians and patients aware that lower targets are available.
The same update changes how the algorithm behaves during long stretches of high glucose. Benjamin said a safety constraint built into the first-generation algorithm, which asked users for manual intervention after the system had run at maximum output for an extended period, has been removed because real-world data showed it was not needed. The stated goal is to keep people in automated mode longer with fewer manual steps.
The change ships as an app update that Insulet said began rolling out on June 3 and would reach its customer base within days. It requires compatible pods, which the company said it has been shipping for some time; an indicator shows whether a given pod supports the 100 target. Benjamin said Omnipod 5 also added compatibility with the Freestyle Libre 3+ sensor this week.
“It actually doesn't trigger frustration. It triggers motivation for me.”
Eric Benjamin, on hearing that some clinicians say they lack time for the technologyOmnipod 6 is targeted for 2027, with an updatable pod
Benjamin described Omnipod 6 as the company's next flagship pod, due to launch in 2027, and said its STRiVE data was being presented during the conference weekend. He framed it around a new algorithm aimed at better glycemic control with less user effort, plus hardware changes intended to let people wear the pod in more locations while maintaining a connection to a CGM — what he referred to as reducing dependence on “line of sight.”
The last of the Omnipod 6 changes Benjamin described was an updatable pod. With Omnipod 5, he said, new capabilities have to be manufactured into a new physical product, a process that can take six to nine months to reach pharmacies; he cited the Freestyle Libre 3+ compatibility, manufactured in late 2025 and announced at the conference, as an example. Omnipod 6, he said, would allow updated pod software to be pushed to the pod hardware during priming through app updates, so prescribers write a single SKU and updates reach customers faster. He noted the change does not alter the device's regulatory requirements, and that fully updating every part of the pod would take a couple of product generations.
A fully closed-loop system, aimed first at type 2
Insulet also released feasibility data at the conference on a fully closed-loop system that Benjamin said is designed to start with no required inputs. He said the company began with type 2 diabetes because of access barriers in primary care: roughly 70 percent of people who take multiple daily injections and live with type 2 are cared for there, and Omnipod 5, despite simplification work, remains too complex for broad primary-care adoption.
The system, as Benjamin described it, is meant to be as easy for a physician to prescribe as a CGM. A patient would pick it up at a pharmacy, bring it home, and start it without entering settings such as basal rates or carb ratios, with optional target personalization available. He cited trial data, referred to as Evolution 3 and being presented at a product theater, in which participants started on the pod and the system adapted to each person's insulin needs, producing what he called significant improvements in time in range.
Asked about GLP-1 medications, Benjamin said people with type 2 diabetes who use a GLP-1 alongside automated insulin delivery tend to see the best outcomes in the company's data, and that GLP-1s are accounted for in the company's work. He noted GLP-1s have been used in diabetes treatment for nearly two decades.
Type 1 stays “bolus optional” for now
Benjamin said people with type 1 diabetes would reach a more hands-off experience iteratively rather than at once. He argued that many systems described as fully closed loop today are really “bolus optional,” and that the type 1 population, along with others cared for by specialists, generally wants the choice of how much to engage with the technology.
A truly hands-off product for someone with type 1 eating a typical, carb-containing diet, he said, would likely require faster insulins to keep time in range at a level he put roughly in the seventies for a motivated user. In the meantime, he said, better automation lets people choose to bolus less often — once a day, on some days, or not at all — based on their own goals.
The backdrop: low penetration
Benjamin returned repeatedly to how few people use automated insulin delivery. He said less than half of people living with type 1 diabetes in the United States benefit from it, and roughly 5 percent of those on multiple daily injections who live with type 2. Across the markets Insulet serves, he put the figure at about 14 million people with insulin-requiring diabetes, of whom roughly 10 percent benefit from AID. Lowering barriers to prescribing, he said, is the throughline across all three products.
Asked what next year's conversation would cover, Benjamin said it would center on Omnipod 6 and, increasingly, the fully closed-loop type 2 product.
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