I know, I know, I had the same reaction: What the heck?! Just on the heels of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF)’s big artificial pancreas announcement last week that brings the non-profit into a commercial partnership with J&J, yesterday they released news of a new commercial partnership with Becton Dickinson (BD). The goal of this collaboration is to improve insulin pump therapy.
I found the press release a bit confusing. The wording seemed to hint that the two organizations would be developing their own patch pump design. Wrong! They’re actually working on new ways to improve insulin infusion, aka how easily and how fast the insulin gets into your body.
Again I got in touch with Aaron Kowalski, Research Director at JDRF (who still owes us answers to all those AP questions – coming soon, promised!) and I was able to uncover the backstory on the BD partnership.
The aim of this collaboration is twofold, Kowalski tells me:
Stage I: Addressing the Problems with Today’s Insulin Pumps
Problems with today’s infusion sets, that is. JDRF believes that BD’s expertise
Photo by Jana L'Esperance
in the world of ultra-fine needles and tubing can help do away with some of the worst inconveniences currently associated with using an insulin pump -
- tube kinking
- soreness at infusion sites
- occlusions (insulin blockages)
- and site infections
“The pump companies haven’t addressed this head on, and we think we can make a big difference here,” Kowalski says.
Stage 2: Transforming Pumping to Use “Micro-Infusion”
Despite their disappointing performance in the world of glucose monitors (BD
discontinued its glucometer line a few years ago), the company is a market leader and “doing some very exciting work” in the world of microneedles, Kowalski says.
The goal is to eventually do away with today’s cannulas, which penetrate the skin about 8-10mm deep. In contrast, the microinjection system that BD is developing penetrates just 1mm, “under the outermost epidermal skin layer.”
This is not only more comfortable but also allows extremely rapid uptake of insulin, because drugs delivered at this layer get into the blood stream faster. And we all know that with insulin delivery, faster is the name of the game!
“This really rapid, direct delivery is exciting for our development of a closed-loop system, and it could make pumping theoretically truly pain-free because the needles are so tiny you can barely feel them,” Kowalski explains.
And What About the Money?
JDRF has announced that it will invest $4.3 million in support for the resulting BD projects over the next few years. I can just hear many of you gasping… Why is this advocacy organization that has pledged to find a cure putting up huge sums of money for commercial ventures? Very fair question. Without sounding at all defensive, Kowalski explained it to me this way:
“JDRF, NIH, ADA… all these organizations are working toward the goal of improving life with illnesses, and we can’t develop and deliver and market these products on our own. We need companies to do that.”
“If this product or any other resulting from a partnership like this is profitable, the JDRF gets a return on that money and that goes back into our next bit of research.”
“Let’s face it, these companies are out there building things, and being businesses, they have to look at short-term goals, market size, etc. This is where Type 1 diabetics usually lose, because the market simply isn’t big enough for companies to have an incentive to build solutions for them.”
“Our goal is to de-risk these projects for the companies, to drive faster development and push for things that patients really want…”
“This is a model used by multiple non-profits nowadays, including the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.”
“A cure is still our ultimate goal, and we’re still spending 80% of our research budget on pursuing that. But you have to appreciate that a walkaway cure is not around the corner… We probably overpromised on that in the past. We believed too many overenthusiastic scientists.”
“Now we are also putting some of our odds on what we can do now to improve life with diabetes. Can we prevent highs? Yes. Can we prevent some of the lows? Yes, I think so…”
“If we can get some of these companies aligned with what patients want, and get them to do it faster, then I think we’ve really accomplished something.”
— Aaron Kowalski, JDRF
I don’t know about you all, but less painful and more effective insulin infusion sounds like a big plus to me.
Amy- awesome news! They are going to address many of the issues i thought about when making my pump decision. Hope they can get all the kinks worked out.
“A cure is still our ultimate goal, and we’re still spending 80% of our research budget on pursuing that. But you have to appreciate that a walkaway cure is not around the corner… We probably overpromised on that in the past. We believed too many overenthusiastic scientists.”…..wow, that will bring in a lot of donations. 40 years and over 1 billion dollars spent and he says that…. unbelievable. Then again I have been hearing a cure is 5 yrs away since I was diagnosed in 1973.
I don’t get this whole AP thing to begin with. From what i read it will do what I am already doing now. I have a medtronic pump and CGMS. I have alarms that go off at 180 and 60 and I act accordingly. I don’t need a computer algorithm to tell me what to do. CGMS has to be dramaticly improved before AP can become a reality. I can only imagine the lawsuits that will occur if someone goes low while driving while using an AP and kills someone. Why any company would want to take this on is beyond me.
wow, negative nancy! of course an artificial pancreas is not going to happen before the sensing technology improves. but baby steps? certainly the technology that exists today is an improvement over its absence.
I learned very early on in having this disease that money given to JDRF was money wasted. Now with their 2 “partnerships” I don’t think they should even be calling themselves “nonprofit” any longer. They have completely lost site of what their original goal was. How much did they donate to Denise Faustman? Oh, that’s right, nothing. How about LCT? Again, nothing. Anything that looks promising as an actual cure, JDRF avoids like the plaque, or does their best to discredit.
I literally do not even know what to say about this. I am absolutely speechless. This is wrong on so many levels, I can’t even believe that people on this board are supporting it.
Do you realize that the JDRF has now turned into a full blown investment company? Now they allocate funds where they feel they can earn money. Forget a cure. That doesn’t matter now. And they still get tax exemption from the government. What the JDRF has done here is called up their Stock Broker and purchased shares of BD (with a promise that it will go towards Type 1). This is not “Dedicated to Finding a Cure”.
Aaron, instead of making up these bogus PR spins, why don’t you provide us with some transparency? For instance, how much of our Cure money did you invest and for what percentage of the profits? How have previous deals like this panned out? How much Cure money has JDRF invested in billion dollar companies and what is your returns on it, in its lifetime?
Most importantly, I want to know how much money was lost between my $1 donation to you, to your investment in BD? How much got “middle-manned”? This will be very important in my decision to spend another 500 hours fund raising for you or instead buying stock in these billion dollar public companies next year?
Wow. There’s a lot of negativity here. Does anyone remember when JDRF was just JDF? I kind of miss those days. We had an organization that could fight for us in every fashion without being overly criticized.
Anyway, I have always understood that one of the goals of JDRF was to better the treatment of type one diabetes and it’s complications so that we can all make it to a cure.
They, for example, funded studies for the sole purpose of getting insurance companies to pay for CGMS for patients more regularly. And it worked! I don’t know about anyone else but I highly doubt I’d have my CGM without those studies. And I’m certainly not going to stop supporting the organization that made it possible for me to get it!
I agree that smaller and less painful sounds like a great idea to me. Ultimately, I would love for their to be a cure, but before that happens, I would like everything that I have to do to manage my diabetes become easier and less painful.
Well thats it for me I’m not going to give any more money to the JDRF. If I decide to support the big pharma companies I can always buy stocks!
@Colleen – I totally agree. Thank you for pointing out the upside, Colleen.
There is a reason most insurance companies don’t want to cover CGM. CGM is worthless for most people with diabetes. The margin of error is so great on CGM systems that they cannot even replace fingerstick testing, you still have to do as many, or almost as many, fingerstick tests. While it is a great tool to figure out trends, it’s hardly worth the cost to use on a daily basis for most PWD – just ask your doctor to set you up with one for a week to trace trends. I would much rather they come up with a fingerstick monitor that has a much smaller margin of error than to continue inventing devices with large margins of error.
How many differnt monitors, pumps and “cute accessories” do we need before we start focusing on an actual cure?
I want a cure as much as the next person but I would welcome changes that would allow me to live my life with reduced stress over lows and highs. Obviously the AP won’t be a cure. But if I can spend most of my day in excellent control without having to worry about it? I’ll take it.
When I was diagnosed in 1988, I was told a cure was about “5 years off.” While I still hope for that, living better with diabetes in the meantime would be a big help.
CGM technology will continue to improve. Different people have had different experiences. For me, I was able to cut down on my BG testing, and the accuracy was good enough to drop my A1c by 1%. (Still, my insurance won’t cover it because I am not having seizures or going to the ER for bad lows.)
I think the JDRF does have to be careful with these investments; openness with donors and strict follow-through with corporations needs to be in place… I think they should have some say in the pricing of the end result. What use is all of this if it is so expensive that no one can afford it?
Anne – I agree with you that tools that actually improve our health would be welcomed. My point though is that at this point in time CGM is hardly worth the money and effort since it cannot replace fingerstick testing because the margin of error is too wide. Not to mention they should work on closing the gap of margin of error on traditional fingerstick monitors as well, those aren’t so hot either. I use an insulin pump, without it I most likely would have died. But there are at least a dozen different insulin pumps on the market and 3 times as many glucose monitors. You can pick size, color, function, etc. I don’t want another tool that “might” improve my A1c by 1 to 2%. It’s time for a cure. As you stated, in 1988 they told you a cure was 5 years away. They told me the same thing when I was diagnosed in 1998. And they’ve been saying “5 years away” for the cure since insulin was discovered in 1922 – that’s 88 years, according to the estimate of a cure being 5 years away since then we should have 17 different cures by now.
The JDRF was founded by parents of children with diabetes with the specific goal of finding a cure for type 1 diabetes – there are plenty of drug and device companies out there working on better tools, JDRF needs to stick with its original goal of curing this disease or give up it’s non-profit status and join the rest of Big Pharma. I’m not donating money to JDRF if it’s not going to finding a cure. I make enough “donations” to Big Pharma every time I check my levels, dose up insulin, etc.
JDRF… if you are listening PLEASE dontate some of your millions of dollars to Dr. Faustman…. she needs 8 million to start Phase II of her clinical trial and only has 2 million. What’s 6 million to JDRF?? Pocket Change?? JDRF can still do the “side” stuff but this would really help give us donators much needed confidence in JDRF.
I feel my checkbook calling me to write another donation to Boston and Dr. Faustman!
I highly doubt JDRF will ever donate to Dr. Faustman. She applied for grants with them the first time around for a mere 2 million and they turned her down, and then turned around and attempted to discredit her! Besides, a grant to Dr. Faustman that leads to a cure won’t have the pay-off a partnership with Big Pharma businesses does. In fact, with these business partnerships they’re probably crossing their fingers a cure isn’t found before they can reap in the profits.
I am a pragmatist, and I really support what JDRF is doing with these partnerships. I believe that for me personally, technology is what will significantly improve my life (I don’t believe that I will see a true cure in my lifetime). We Type 1s don’t have the numbers to get the money/advances moving our way, so I am grateful to JDRF for making it happen.
JDRF scientists have known for over 10 years about the positive ‘curative’ effects from Vitamin D supplementation amidst epidemic levels of Vitamin D deficiency. This is a fact yet where is their campaign to wipe out Vitamin D deficiency through education and awareness? Well?
Melitta has capture my way of thinking. Technology is the only answer. Period. I was diagnosed 30 years ago and this “5 year cure” was used then, and as i can read still used now. JDRF funds great research, but even the fundamental science work they support is still in its infancy. Cure is the aim but nowhere near. For those who keep putting off the hard work needed to manage diabetes well (in the idea that a cure is coming soon) the spectre of long-term complications might become a reality. closed-loop sytems will be our best option, therefore if JDRF funds those developments, i’m fine with that. Your other option is to is to buy JnJ and Medtronic stocks.
Slightly different view point here: if is that shallow, what are the risks it will pull out?
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