As if by magic, I get this in my Facebook feed today:
http://typeonenation.org/2014/04/23/jdrf-partners-with-thermalin-on-ultra-rapid-insulin-2/
It's development of a new ultra-fast acting insulin. This would solve the delay. There's also a nice diagram showing the PK curves (profiles) of various insulin compared to pancreatic insulin.
There's also an insulin in clinical trials that has a response time, by the look of it, the same as pancreatic insulin, but it's AUC (exposure) is smaller. It's called Affrezza, here's a link:
http://pharmapeek.com/metabolic/page/4/
So, there's increased hope!
I was wondering how further along they were getting with this, I'm really tempted to change my insulin in my pump to one with a quicker rate, I hate have to bolus before and have it all planned out in advance. I wonder also how they are getting on with the glucagon? At present I believe it's only stable for 24hrs of use so has to be changed and wasted, after that time or it degrades.
From reading the american study on this, they were waiting on new faster insulin and stable glucagon. Also as far as the lag system goes, The device would still be used in the same way as a pump therefore you still had to tell it when you were going to eat and do excercise or be stressed etc. It would also let you input if you were having a regular dinner, lunch, tea, snack, or whether you were say going out for a massive dinner. So that it could release the bolus in a similar way to it would usually do or be prepared to do more corrections and adjustments, delayed release of insulin etc. I believe from reading it and seeing the data that the algorigthm is constantly changing as it learns your bodies patterns, and corrects itself from the orginal programme, so that someone 2 years down the line of wearing it will have tighter control than someone 2 months of wearing it, and will be tighter than someone 2 days of wearing it.
I was amazed how much out I was when I got my CGM, It's very surprising the little spikes you have and don't notice because you're not checking every 5 mins. I don't think that this will be too big of a difference when compared to normal pancreas function (obviously not as good as) but not as far as you imagine. Still think it'll be another 5 years off yet before you can buy one, I doubt they will be on the NHS, at least for 10 years. Sign me up to have one though!