Upcoming Medical Innovations for Diabetics

Modern technology has allowed diabetics in the past few years to breathe easier than ever before, with applications and medical devices that assist in the control of their blood glucose levels with ease. And with innovation still moving at break-neck speed, we take a look at the latest medical innovations to be introduced in the next coming years.

Contact Lens Glucometer

Tech giant Google has teamed up with contact lens manufacturer Alcon, a division company of Novartis, have teamed up to create a contact lens that will measure glucose levels in the tears of a patient and report it back to a mobile device for monitoring. This comes as exceptional news for diabetics, who check their blood sugar levels an average of eight to ten times a day through pricking their fingers.

Afrezza; insulin inhaler

Sanofi and MannKind Corp have developed a new type of insulin that can be inhaled instead of injecting, offering diabetics a pain-free way to administer their medication. Afrezza, a rapid acting insulin powder is administered orally at the beginning of every meal using a device close to an asthma inhaler. It also clears from the body much quicker than regular fast-acting insulin options, reducing the risks of hypoglycaemia significantly. 

Diabetic insulin patches

Diabetics were extremely enthusiastic with the arrival of the insulin pump. The pump didn’t just allow diabetics from manually administering their insulin, and suffer bruising or infection at the site, but some pumps came with automatic sensors, which targeted the blood sugar fluctuation and calculated the necessary actions on its own, leaving the diabetics more room to focus on everything else. Now it appears that pumps may be replaced by insulin patches, which will be contain a specific amount of insulin to be administered for a set number of hours, and will be administered through the tiny needles in the skin and into the blood stream.

Timesulin Cap

Diabetics can sometimes have a hard time remembering if they took their last shot or forgotten to. Insulin manufactures have come up with a way to address this issue through a Timesulin cap. The cap activates once it’s has been attached to the insulin pen and the timer begins its countdown; a digital reader will inform you then how long it has been since you last ‘uncapped’ the insulin pen,  giving diabetics an idea on whether or not they administered their last dose.

ICTA 650; under the skin medical exenatide

Intarcia has developed the latest addition to type 2 diabetes treatment options, with phase 3 trials in humans already well under way. The ICTA 650 is a matchstick-sized device implanted under the skin which delivers a continuous dose of type 2 medication exenatide, which stimulates the production and absorption of insulin cells. The device will be filed for FDA clearance in early next year and will only need to be implanted once or twice a year.