I saw this interesting article in my news feed.
I hear all the time about things in the works, but had no idea there were so many. What an exciting time for innovations for us! Wonder how many of these will make it to market.
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Competition is good. Wish we had 39 insulins in the works!!
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I’m really interested in the one with a combined insulin pump port. The implantable ones sound awesome, too. I wonder if they can do it better than Eversense managed. If they could biodegradable and didn’t have to be removed, it would it would be a big step forward.
Ear clips, eye sensors, sweat receivers, smart watches…
I’d bet one of the non-invasive wearables will be bought by Apple.
And hazard a guess that the implantable by Profusa will “disappear” and be used by the military to monitor & medicate “elite” soldiers. It’s received funding from both the US Army and DARPA. They don’t spend money on things that don’t have military application potential.
Supposedly Apple has been working on their own, but yeah, wouldn’t be surprised if they just bought up ones that are more advanced than their own work.
Military does release enough cookies to the public to keep us thinking they’re doing good things for us. Medical research is a fairly common flavor of those cookies, at least where it’s not seen as a security risk. I’m going to hope CGM cookies are on the menu!
I was being, at least in part, tongue-in-cheek, about the military. I know of their beneficial science. Modafanil (Provigil) is a great drug for certain fatigue/sleep illnesses and narcolepsy that was developed by the military to keep special forces, etc., alert and focused for days without sleep.
I’m not an MBA, nor do I play one on TV, so I guess I’m hoping someone more in tune with such things can address my question of whether this wave of innovation represents a move toward or away from greater interoperability between devices. Specifically, I know that many of the biggest players (Fitbit, Apple, Google) are pursuing/expanding wearable health tech as a way of extending their device/app “ecology.” Kind of like the Medtronic approach writ large: “You gotta use our CGM with our pump, even if it’s inferior to others on the market.” As a f’rinstance, Fitbit was making noise back in 2017-18 about Dexcom integration, but I seem to recall reading more recently that they put the brakes on that because they want to develop/acquire their own proprietary system. And of course Apple is notorious for developing this marketing strategy to a high pitch. Will it become more restrictive to get Dexcom readings on your Watch if they move toward developing/acquiring their own CGM tech? Or just, “Hey, you can still see your readings, but they aren’t integrated into all the other nifty activity monitoring stuff, for that you need iGluc” or whatever. Even if iGluc is maybe adequate for your casual wearer but hardly up to the mark for a T1 making a dosing decision.
The other concern I have is that these moves are even more about data acquisition and data tracking for captive-marketing purposes, another reason why locking out other players once you’re inside their ecosystem is part of the strategy.
Not to rain on the parade! On the whole I think more competition is better. Just thinking about where it’s all going.
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Does Fitbit, Apple and Google even want a product that falls under the purview of the FDA? I’m not so sure about that.
FWIW, from the article:
Apple
The tech giant has reportedly been working on a noninvasive CGM for much of the last decade, with up to 30 people assigned to the project at one point.
One of their concepts is believed to involve optical sensors, while another report from 2019 discusses Apple’s patent for a CGM sensor built into a smartwatch that would be able to monitor other health data as well.
To date, rollouts of new Apple Watch technology haven’t included this functionality, and Apple hasn’t yet filed anything with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
To be clear, this is separate from the Dexcom CGM data display available on Apple smartwatches.
Very good points @DrBB, and I’m not in a business-insider position to answer them. I highly doubt the big corporations will buy out everything, though. If interpretability it’s what the populace wants, then I believe that will be a driving force in design. Apple aside, since they don’t play nice with others 
I assume that being bought up and remarketed by one of these larger entities is also kinda the ideal for smaller independent developers. Apple is evidently not having a lot of luck building their own gizmo, but why should they, it’s not their core business. Buying up an independent one and incorporating that is another way to go, probably faster and smarter. I think it’s more a question of whether the ones that don’t get bought up are able to make a go of it on their own.
As a Type 2 on basal insulin they can invent all they want but Medicare needs to allow us to use them. I find it so frustrating that I need to stick my finger after 28 years. Hope that changes soon. Thank you for letting me vent. Nancy50
So just one injection a day, so Medicare not allowing you a CGM? Bummer
I think this is often true, but with the Apple Health app integrating with just about everything under the sun, I think they are looking for an entire arena to be involved in (and eventually dominate).
You have to be on meal time insulin, testing 4 plus times a day. I test 5-6 most days. Thanks
Nancy Matulis