The top diabetes stories this week include: Australian scientists say they have a new way to restore insulin production using an existing and approved drug, Tandem rolls out bolus by phone for wider release and acquires Capillary Biomedical, an infusion set maker. Dexcom adds Spanish as a language option for the G6, a necklace is said to be able to monitor glucose levels and Netflix’s Purple Hearts focuses on type 1 medical costs as a plot point.
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Australian scientists say they have a new way to restore insulin production in pancreatic cells, using a drug that’s already approved for use in humans. In lab experiments on pancreatic stem cells from donors with type 1 diabetes, the team was able to activate them to begin expressing insulin by exposing them to a drug compound known as GSK126.
These cells don’t normally produce insulin, but the drug let them functionally step into the shoes of the beta cells that had stopped working. In principle, a single course of this kind of drug over a few days could replace the need for regular insulin shots in diabetics.
The new treatment would work much faster, within a matter of days, and without the need for surgery. But perhaps the biggest advantage is that GSK126 is already approved by the US FDA and elsewhere in the world as a treatment for cancer. Its safety profile is already being assessed in clinical trials, which could reduce hurdles down the road for its use against diabetes.
That said, the scientists caution that it is still very early days. These experiments were conducted on cells in culture – not even in animals yet – so there’s still plenty of work to do. Nevertheless, it remains an intriguing new possible tool.
https://newatlas.com/medical/diabetes-breakthrough-insulin-production-existing-drug/
Couple of big announcements from Tandem Diabetes this week. They’ve widened the roll out of their Mobile Bolus feature, now open to all customers with in-warranty tslim x2 pumps and compatible smart phones. Approved earlier this year, it has been available for a few weeks to a small group of users.
https://www.tandemdiabetes.com/products/software-apps/tconnect-mobile
Tandem also announced it acquired infusion set developer Capillary Biomedical, an infusion set maker. To quote the press release: Capillary Biomedical’s unique extended wear infusion set technology is currently in development and not commercially available. The company designed its SteadiFlow seven-day-wear infusion set technology to significantly extend patient wear time to a week and maintain insulin stability. Capillary Biomedical received FDA investigational device exemption for the platform in January of this year.
https://www.drugdeliverybusiness.com/tandem-diabetes-acquires-capillary-biomedical-infusion/
Dexcom is launching their G6 mobile app in Spanish. It is estimated that 11.8% of U.S. Latino adults have diagnosed diabetes. Dexcom says “Launching the Dexcom G6 app in Spanish is a positive step toward improving health equity for individuals with diabetes who primarily speak Spanish.”
To access the Dexcom G6 mobile app in Spanish, users need to install the latest version of the app and set their compatible iOS (v1.10.1) or Android (v1.10.0) smartphone* language to Spanish (any dialect/region). The app will automatically display in Spanish as long as the phone language is set to Spanish.
Big issue for a diabetes app in the UK. CamAps FX is an automated insulin delivery system that works with Dexcom and Tandem. But Google has blocked it from the Play Store and won’t let it send text message alerts. Camdiab, the company behind it, is having to send the messages via another service and pay for each one individually.
Google said it doesn’t allow any apps, other than the designated text message app on a device, to send SMS messages. CamAps FX spent 15 years in development by experts at Cambridge.
