Devices & Diagnostics

Medtronic follows Dexcom to go the smartphone route with CGM

Medtronic is giving diabetes patients on insulin injection therapy outside the U.S. the ability to view blood glucose data from their continuous glucose monitors on their smartphones.

GuardianCGM_MedtronicSMALLIn the United States, diabetes patients who use the Dexcom G5 Mobile continuous glucose monitoring system have had the convenience of viewing their blood glucose data on their smartphones.

Users of Medtronic’s CGMs have been less fortunate.

“Dexcom is really the innovator in the field,” said Venkat Rajan, industry manager, medical devices at Frost & Sullivan, in a phone interview.

But the Irish medtech company is righting that wrong at least overseas.

On Tuesday, Medtronic announced that its first smartphone-enabled CGM device — the Guardian Connect — has won CE Mark. Patients who use insulin injections will be able to use that device and a companion app to get their data on an iOS enabled smartphone. The company is developing an Android version too.

Guardian Connect is expected to launch in Medtronic’s second quarter of fiscal 2017, which starts this August, and will be available in select countries in Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America.

The device is being billed as the first and only mobile CGM system with customizable text alerts that care partners can receive on any connected mobile device when patients have too high and too low glucose. Up to five care partners of patients who use Dexcom’s G5 Mobile CGM can download the companion “follow app” to receive blood glucose data of their loved one, according to Dexcom’s website.

The biggest benefit of these smartphone-enabled CGMs of course is better awareness of glucose trends. Many believe that early detection of higher or lower trending glucose levels can help to gain better glycemic control.

“Having continuous, real-time access to glucose values and being alerted to important trends and events is key for people with diabetes, said Annette Brüls, president, Diabetes Service and Solutions at Medtronic, in a news release. “With our new Guardian Connect system, we’ve continued to innovate so we can deliver these insights for people with diabetes on insulin injection therapy.”

Use of CGMs has been growing not only because of an increase in the prevalence of the disease worldwide, but also as the technology has shown itself to be more effective at managing blood glucose levels.

A new report from Grand View Research forecasts that the worldwide CGM market is expected to be worth $1.01 billion in 2024. The market can be divided into transmitters and receivers, sensors and insulin pumps, but having a smartphone-enabled CGM removes the need for a separate transmitter and/or display device.

The biggest players in the overall CGM world are Medtronic and Dexcom, but Abbott, Johnson & Johnson are also top names in this market.

While CGMs have been a major leap in the way diabetes, especially Type 1 diabetes, is managed, the world may be on the cusp of a major diabetes breakthrough: the artificial pancreas. The credit for that will go to Medtronic, assuming the Food and Drug Administration approves its PMA application, which it recently submitted.

Photo: Medtronic

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