By
AmyT on
April 28, 2011
Diabetes Health magazine recently published an exposé about the implantable insulin pump that Medtronic has been developing in Europe for over 20 years. The story quotes four passionate users and implies that Medtronic is dumping this phenomenal technology for lowly business reasons (not sniffing enough profit in the air?)
A few of the dozens of commenters defended Medtronic by pointing out the holdup at FDA, not only on the new pump technology itself, but also…
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By
AmyT on
January 17, 2011
Last week, thousands of healthcare companies and investors therein descended upon San Francisco for the 2011 JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. Although I wasn’t able to attend personally, I’ve been keeping an eagle eye on what happened there in terms of diabetes through my friend, seasoned industry observer David Kliff of Diabetic Investor — reporting daily on what he calls “the wacky world of diabetes devices.”
He’s kindly given me permission to summarize some of his…
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By
AmyT on
November 3, 2010
Why is affordable generic insulin not available to patients in the US? Mainly because the big manufacturers have a stronghold on the patents for this complicated “biologic” drug. But now it seems Big Pharma itself may be presenting a nice alternative.
What I’m talking about is Pfizer’s new attempt to enter the injectable insulin market (less risky than their Exubera flop!) Pfizer and Biocon, a biopharmaceutical company in India, recently announced a multimillion dollar partnership…
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By
AmyT on
September 21, 2010
The iPhone integration dreams of many a diabetic are coming true at last!!
Sanofi-Aventis made history today at the annual EASD (European Association for the Study of Diabetes) conference, if you ask me. They have introduced the first-ever medical device that actually physically plugs into the iPhone and iPod Touch! It’s a tiny new USB-sized glucose meter they’re calling iBGStar. It’s coupled with the new iBGStar Diabetes Manager program, a free logging app that users…
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Insulin maker Sanofi-Aventis took a big hit last year with the Lantus-cancer scare. But that hasn’t stopped them from charging ahead in diabetes care. According to industry observers, the company’s new US Diabetes unit, fueled by a recent “acquisition binge,” is gearing up to “turn the diabetes world upside-down” with a full set of new offerings to help doctors help patients achieve better outcomes. Sounds intriguing!
I caught up last week with Dennis Urbaniak, Sanofi’s…
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