New technologies continue to advance in all sectors, including healthcare. Insulin smart pens will soon be available on the market.
This product was presented at the 58th congress of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), held in Stockholm, Sweden.
This pen is an innovation that automatically records applied doses, with date and time, and communicates with disease management devices or applications.
The benefits of smartpen and insulin
With the pen, the risk of a person with diabetes miss the wrong dose of insulin or forget to take any of the doses you need.
In addition to being reusable, refillable with new needles and new cartridges, the pen will bring more practicality to the routine of diabetics, reducing the time spent on self-care.
“People with diabetes spend, on average, an hour a day on self-care, which is equivalent to two full years dedicated exclusively to the disease. The device has the potential to reduce that burden,” says Priscilla Mattar, medical director at Novo Nordisk.
To test the effectiveness of smart insulin pens, a study was carried out with diabetics in Sweden where the public health system distributes the product.
The result observed was a gain in quality of life and fewer complications from diabetes after incorporating the device into the daily lives of patients.
How do smart insulin pens work?
At the EASD congress, Medtronic, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk presented their insulin smart pen models.
They usually record the doses, upload them to a database and allow you to see how many active insulin injections were taken during the day, what the level of active insulin is in the body.
Some models even talk to blood glucose sensors and sound alarms when it starts to rise.
Sanofi’s version, Solo Smart, is a removable, refillable cap that attaches to the brand’s refillable pens, which records doses and sends them to mobile apps via Bluetooth.
It stores the last 100 doses of insulin in memory and will be released in France, Germany and Japan in the first half of 2023.
Novo Nordisk’s products, NovoPen 6 and NovoPen Echo Plus, are based on NFC technology, the same technology used in contactless payments.
They have a display that shows the amount of dose and what has happened since the last application. Just swipe the stylus on your mobile to download the data.
By Priscila Riscarola. Article in Portugueses