Needle Free Diabetes Care

Needle-Free Diabetes Care

Needle Free Diabetes Care Device

To say, Diabetes self-care is a pain—literally. It brings the constant need to draw blood for glucose testing, the need for daily insulin shots and the heightened risk of infection from all that poking. Continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps are today's best options for automating most of the complicated daily process of blood sugar management – but they don't completely remove the need for skin pricks and shots. But there's new skin in this game. Echo Therapeutics (Philadelphia, PA) is developing technologies that would replace the poke with a patch. Currently, the company is working on a trans-dermal bio-sensor that reads blood analyses through the skin without drawing blood. The technology involves a handheld electric-toothbrush-like device that removes just enough top-layer skin cells to put the patient's blood chemistry within signal range of a patch-borne bio-sensor. The sensor collects one reading per minute and sends the data without wire to a remote monitor, triggering audible alarms when levels go out of the patient's optimal range and tracking glucose levels over time.