Sleep8 is bullish on cleaning market

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. – Sleep8 is leaning on a new president and a new partnership with VGM & Associates to differentiate itself in a market that’s come under scrutiny due to a recent recall of certain Philips CPAP devices. 

The company, under the leadership of President Jeff Hingher, posted a blog to its website in July emphasizing that, while its CPAP cleaning system uses ozone, it only cleans the mask, tubing and water chamber – not the CPAP device. 

“I’d say, from what we’re seeing, there’s a lot of confusion in the marketplace,” said Hingher, who came onboard in February. “What we believe is, not all CPAP cleaners are the same. Ours does not hook up to the CPAP device. It’s a bag that you put the accessories inside and seal it up.” 

Philips says ozone-based CPAP cleaning systems have “exacerbated” the degradation of the sound abatement foam in its DreamStation CPAP and certain other devices, raising the risk of particles entering the air pathway of the devices and being ingested or inhaled by users.  

Sleep8 also become a vendor partner of VGM & Associates in June to ramp up marketing, particularly to new provider customers, helping the company to hit “one of our strongest sales months to date” in July, says Steve Goode, vice president of sales. 

“DME providers like this category – they have from the beginning,” he said of the retail products. “There are just a lot of questions right now. Providers fall into one of two camps: Those that have carried our product for a long time and they’re standing strong and they’re seeing their sales increasing because of the design of our system; and those that are trying to clear up what’s going on.” 

Sleep8’s growth in the past six months, despite scrutiny of the market related to the Philips recall, not to mention widespread supply chain challenges, is a major accomplishment, Hingher says. 

“We’re looking at these as opportunities,” said Hingher, who previously ran marketing for brands like Cheerios and Pedigree dog food. “We’ve been able to increase demand for our products through some challenging months.”