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Insulin pump manufacturer Medtronic has made another key move towards developing a commercially available artificial pancreas by partnering with an Israeli company, DreaMed Diabetes, which has been working on artificial pancreas algorithms for a number of years. Medtronic has made no secret that the development of a fully functional artificial pancreas is its primary objective and by teaming up with DreaMed, Medtronic should be able to realise this objective within a shorter timescale. The news is very exciting for people with type 1 diabetes. The development of an insulin pump-based artificial pancreas requires an insulin pump, continuous glucose monitoring sensors (CGM sensors) and advanced software to calculate the correct insulin delivery to give in response to changes in blood glucose levels. The partnership is a strong pairing. Medtronic is the market leader in insulin pumps and has already made strong in-roads into developing artificial pancreas technology. Medtronic's latest pump, the MiniMed 640G is the most sophisticated insulin pump that is currently commercially available. The pump, when used with CGM sensors has the ability to predict when hypoglycemia is likely to occur and switch off insulin delivery until the threat has passed. On the other side of the pairing is DreaMed, a company that has been developing artificial pancreas algorithms for a number of years and carried out a number of clinical trials, since 2007, to prove their success. DreaMed's Glucositter technology includes their MD-Logic algorithm, which makes use of 'fuzzy logic'. The technology also boasts the capability of being patient tailored, that is the software has the ability to learn individual characteristics of different people. Whilst the technology, in its current form, will require some decisions to be made by the patient, the advantage is that the technology will be able to help to correct errors, at both ends of the high and low blood sugar spectrum, in a way in which current insulin pumps with CGM functionality are not yet able to do.
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