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A Call-to-Pharma: Colored Insulin Would Help!
We had two video entries in this year’s DiabetesMine Design Challenge presenting the same idea: why not offer colored insulin, which would not only be useful but potentially life-saving for us folks who live on the stuff?
The idea is not entirely new. Diabetes Health magazine had a series of articles / letters to the editor discussing the possibility last year. As you can see by our contest entries, there are two pillars to the argument in favor of coloring insulin —
First, the potential for dangerous mistakes:
And second, those pesky bubbles that plague so many insulin pump users:
We judges thought the idea was brilliant. What a difference this could make for PWDs on both injections and the pump!
But the hurdle is obvious and pretty daunting: how do you convince the insulin manufacturers to make this a priority — knowing that changing their production methods is a huge, costly affair?
Have the pharma companies ever even seriously considered the possibility? Looks like the answer is no. I queried Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi-Aventis and received only vague answers such as:
“… a significant change in manufacturing … would require long discussions and approval not only of the FDA but other regulatory bodies around the world.”
“… the stability of the insulins could be impacted by coloring agents and/or new clinical trials or even a new FDA filing may be necessary.”
All true — but these obstacles don’t sound insurmountable if the companies believed there was money in selling colored insulin.
Meanwhile, we’ll have to continue to rely on “clarity of the product labels”: see the official statements from Lilly, Novo and Sanofi in the Diabetes Health followup piece here.
Ugh. Clearly, with clear insulin it’s not always clear which one or how much you’ve taken. Making the stuff colored could indeed impact our health and well being, and possibly save lives.
Many thanks to Amanda Grow and Carrie (aka FoxIs) for their passionate video entries on the topic. We {heart} the name TINTsulin, too!
Explore posts in the same categories: Diabetes Product Parade, Products
No thank you. I’m already putting enough chemicals into my body. I work hard to avoid artificial coloring in my food. The last thing I want is for the stuff to be in my insulin.
Posted by: Snowflake Seven | May 22nd, 2009 at 6:42 amIt would be a useful feature. I’ve taken Humalog instead of Lantus twice since diagnosis 4 years ago. The mistake is generally easy to avoid but the nature of this chronic disease requires insulin multiple times a day, every day, week, month, and year. Pat yourself on the back if you’ve never made this mistake! I keep my H and L in separate places of the fridge.
We’re a captive market, so there’s little incentive for manufacturers to lay out the money and effort for fda approval. If one company did it, the others might follow. Certainly, if the employees of the companies were diabetic, insulins would already be colored! Perhaps a company will eventually color their insulin as a means to “renew” their patent.
Posted by: Don | May 22nd, 2009 at 7:10 amI don’t use a pump so can’t comment on that, but instead of colouring the insulin, Novo Nordisk have started giving their disposable pens putrid colours instead. Horrible green for Levemir, orange for NovoRapid. Certainly helps if you keep your pens in the same case but you’re out of luck if you use the non-disposable variety. I just have basal and bolus pens in very different cases instead to stop me getting confused early in the morning or late (and perhaps a little squiffy) at night.
I’m with Snowflake Seven in that coloured insulin would probably freak me out. I’d not be comfortable with it, at least for a while, even if the colouring was natural.
George.
Posted by: George Bridgeman | May 22nd, 2009 at 7:23 amI’d be more interested in seeing some sort of temperature sensitive color-changing feature on the label of the vial. Particularly for those of us who get mail order insulin, we have to rely on the the fact that our insulin has been stored properly in transit.
Posted by: Sara | May 22nd, 2009 at 8:06 amI can see the potential benefit but it’s not a big enough benefit for me to be convinced that putting extra chemicals into my body day after day is worth it.
Posted by: Alison | May 22nd, 2009 at 8:43 amI agree w Snowflake 7, putting red, green, blue or whatever color insulin into my body has no appeal. BUT, perhaps 90% of the issue of potentially using the wrong insulin could be aleviated by having different colored LABELS on the bottles for the different insulins. This would be far easier to implement than changing what’s inside the vial, and provide a strong visual clue about what you’re about to be using.
Posted by: CB | May 22nd, 2009 at 9:39 amI use a pump and tinted insulin sounds like a great idea but I’m not sure I like the idea of injecting large amounts of dye into my body.
Posted by: Shirley | May 22nd, 2009 at 10:09 amWhat a great idea to help distinguish between different types of insulin! I would find it a little unsettling though to use the added chemicals, and also to have purple insulin running through my pump tubing. As a compromise, it would be great to see color added to the materials used for the vials (stained glass style), and this wouldn’t require any added chemicals or manufacturing requirements.
Posted by: Rebekah | May 22nd, 2009 at 10:11 amIf it is such a big deal to change the color of insulin, I too agree that the companies should at least start by having the labels color coded. By the time all the government agencies approve these changes, we probably have a better chance of finding a cure.
Posted by: Mark R | May 22nd, 2009 at 10:18 amSara – Here! Here! I would love to have a color changer on the insulin bottle. I’m never sure if my insulin really did stay cool in transit. Could explain why my son’s numbers are better with the first month of bottles and gets worse just before reorder…Hmmm….
While I do see a HUGE benefit to colored insulin, I too am afraid of injecting that dye into my son. Sure would help when his tubing breaks.
Posted by: Jodie Heflin | May 22nd, 2009 at 10:54 amOffering consumers the option of colored insulin would be nice. But forcing everyone who uses insulin to use colored insulin would be horrible. As others have noted, we’re already injecting and ingesting enough substances with unknown effects, and this would be one more.
Posted by: Gretchen | May 22nd, 2009 at 1:53 pmI am all for colored coded labels and larger letters on the vials, I would also suggest trying to use colors that are easy to distinguish when you are colorblind, whether it is due to retinopathy treatment or if you are just colorblind in general. Colors for Insulin sound cool but, I have enough junk going in me already, I don’t need to start worrying about Red dye #5. The color change bottle/vial would be awesome, If Coor can hve color changing cans, why not Insulin vials/bottles/ pens, etc. Someone should talk to the beer guys and see how I’ts done and how to implement it, before the Insulin itself starts turning red!!!
Posted by: LindaB | May 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pmBoth cool concepts and videos. I too got a chuckle from TINTsulin. I never really thought about colored insulin. I would have concerns about chemicals, but if there was a way to do it with natural substances, colored insulin would have a lot of advantages. Those pump cartridge bubbles – both the ones I can see and can never seem to dislodge, and the ones I feel certain are there, but I can’t see – drive me bonkers. They’re one of the reasons I hate changing my cartridge/infusion set.
Posted by: Lee Ann Thill | May 22nd, 2009 at 8:07 pmI agree with everyone else who is uncomfortable injecting dye daily. There are also plenty of people allergic to dyes, and that would leave them with difficulties.
Posted by: mollyjade | May 22nd, 2009 at 11:23 pmHow about putting different colored tape on your vials with the date opened and Do Not Use Past [Opened Date plus 30days]?
Posted by: Kevin | May 23rd, 2009 at 6:03 amHow about a simple solution: Put a colored label on your insulin bottle yourself? Cheaper even still
Use those colored dots or label you get at the office supply store.
Posted by: Mark | May 24th, 2009 at 9:18 pmIf we’re going to be dying insulin, we should be dying pills too. Who wants to take a pain pill when they thought they were taking their heart medicine, but they’re both round, white pills?
But really, it’s not realistic to have every medication be a different color. I think different labels should be enough, particularly if people treat insulin with some of the respect it deserves.
Posted by: Christine | May 25th, 2009 at 4:44 pmHi, I’m Amanda’s husband the guy in the first video, of course making another product line for each color of insulin is obnoxious what we had in mind was an additive you could do like how they flavor cough syrup for children ect. This would also require approval by the FDA but if you already have the lobbyists as most of these corp.’s do then pushing it through in any sort of timeframe is not an issue and for an extra buck or 2 for a bit of (most likely natural) dye from plants and extracts to have peace of mind or to make it exciting for children, and encourage them to keep up on their medications is WORTH it.
Posted by: Nick Grow | May 26th, 2009 at 2:12 pmWell,I agree on the Colored Insulin, but Now using the Pens? I’d like to see Different Color and types of Pens for each type of Insulin..
The Levemire and Novalog Pens are identical, other than the small color lable
I put Duct tape on one and keep the Levemire in the Fridge vs the Novolog Pen on the counter, etc.. In the First week of getting the Pens, sure enough, I took Novolog instead of Levemire and that was fund, downing 3 cans of coke and staying up for the next few hours and testing…
and a Adjustable top for the Novolog Pen wb nice too, so I can use it with leaving the Pen Needle on … for now? I put some Tape around the middle so the cover stays on tight with the pen needle on it..
Posted by: Dennis | May 26th, 2009 at 8:06 pmi believe that not only would colored insulin be good for insulin pump users, but if pharmaseutical companies would realize the potentials for all the senior citizens that cannot clearly see the amount of clear insulin that they are giving themselves and how much of an advantage having colored insulin would do for safe effective health care for seniors. it would eventually be very cost effective to the health care systrem.
Posted by: Adrien Pikovsky | October 4th, 2009 at 11:05 am