The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation has announced a partnership with Animas Corp. and DexCom Inc. to develop a first-generation automated system for managing type 1 diabetes.
The JDRF will provide $8 million over the next 3 years to Animas, a Johnson & Johnson company that manufactures insulin pumps. DexCom, a manufacturer of continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices, will supply that part of the technology for the system. The money will fund clinical trials of efficacy and safety, with the first-generation system expected to be ready for regulatory review within 4 years, Alan Lewis, Ph.D., JDRF president and CEO, said in a telephone briefing.
The ultimate goal is to develop a fully automated “closed-loop” system to regulate blood glucose levels, but the initial version would still require some input from the user and therefore would only be partially closed. It would consist of the insulin pump and the CGM—which are currently available but operate separately—with a computer program that would link the two. It would automatically increase insulin delivery upon detection of hyperglycemia and shut off delivery when hypoglycemia occurs, subsequently resuming delivery when glucose levels return to normal.
The patient would still need to manually instruct the pump to deliver insulin, but the system would improve overall control by minimizing the amount of time a patient spends out of target glucose range, said Aaron Kowalski, Ph.D., JDRF assistant vice president and director of glucose control research.
The insulin pump and glucose sensor will be linked via a computer program.
Source Courtesy JDRF (Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation)