There’s been plenty of talk over the last few years about ‘closed loop’ systems and artificial pancreases. Talk and a bit of action but nothing conclusive just yet.
However, the latest announcement that the JDRF are pouring $US 8 million into a closed loop system between Animas and Dexcom (CGMS) sounds like great news to me.
Details over at Diabetes Mine…
Interesting to hear they’d hope to have a product in market in four year’s time.
My questions are two-fold.
1. Does that mean it could get released in the States in 2014 but crawl its way to NZ by, say, 2017?
2. Regardless of timing, is this going to be yet another product that exists for the wealthy but is way out of reach for us commoners? (e.g you can currently hire a Dexcom and sensors from a NZ company but it costs something like $600 – $700 for just four weeks.)
Which leads me to my next observation. Remember back in the 80s (and before) when NZ really felt like an island in the middle of the ocean, the country that time forgot? When people would speak in hushed tones about their trip to AUSTRALIA or AMERICA where they had gone crazy on the shopping, buying things that we could only read about in magazines and see on the telly? It feels like we’ve greatly caught up since those days, for example being the first country worldwide (due to our positioning geographically) to get the 3G iPhone.
So why does it still feel like we’re the country cousin when it comes to diabetes products and technology? I’d like to see this gap closed.
Posted in CGMS, Insulin Pumps, Technology & Equipment
Tagged as Animas, artificial pancreas, closed loop, Dexcom, JDRF
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4 comments have been made on this post
Penny wrote
The thing that gets me is that in countries like Australia you can get pumps on your medical insurance.
No way here.
Why the difference?
Aaron wrote
Critical mass perhaps? Then there is also the problem if you don’t have medical like I didn’t which opens up another raft of problems…
Aaron wrote
I just tracked down this article cos it tweaked my interest and read it tonight. It was really interesting and sounds promising but the take away fact for me from the article was a quote from Aaron Kowalski, research director of the Artificial Pancreas Project at JDRF who said that:
“Even the most sophisticated people with diabetes only spend 30 percent of the time in their blood sugar range, and it’s often much less than that.”
Wow.
I’ve been having a bit of a nightmare lately with my levels (hence using LogForLife so much this week) and knowing that only 30% of tests for T1s fall into normal range just about made me fall off my chair! So kids, if you can get more than 30% of your tests in range then you’re a cut above me at least
I’ve often wondered just how well controlled the ethereal ‘everyone else’ is because I tend to take a rather self-deprecating point of view of my own level of control but this makes me feel HEAPS better!