Developing technology that will help type 1 diabetes patients forget their disease Two key innovations in the development of a bionic pancreas are “market ready”, bringing people with type 1 diabetes one step closer to automated blood sugar control. Health © Vitalii Vodolazskyi, Shutterstock The Innovation Radar, an initiative to identify high-potential innovations and innovators in EU-funded projects, has deemed two key inventions of Norwegian nanosensor technology company Lifecare ready for commercialisation. Part of the EU-funded FORGETDIABETES project, Lifecare and its partners from Germany, France and Italy are developing an immuno-optimised, fully implantable and automated bionic invisible pancreas (BIP) that could drastically improve quality of life for people with type 1 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes is a chronic disease in which the immune system destroys insulin-making cells in the pancreas. Without insulin, our bodies cannot control the level of glucose in the blood, which can lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, stroke and lower limb amputation. The absence of a cure for type 1 diabetes highlights the need for a technology such as the BIP that aims to restore blood sugar level control in the body. The key innovation tasks As reported in a news item posted on Lifecare’s website, one of the company’s main tasks in the project is to develop the BIP’s sensing element, namely an implantable intraperitoneal sensor that is a critical component of the artificial pancreas. The second task involves the development of an in vitro test system and an insulin pump for the artificial pancreas that is being realised by Lifecare’s wholly owned German subsidiary Lifecare Laboratory (FORGETDIABETES partner formerly named PFÜTZNER Science & Health Institute). As part of the second task, Lifecare Laboratory developed an in vitro test bench for dynamic interference testing of glucose sensors. Bench testing is a vital step in a device’s design process that involves identifying mechanical and design flaws and testing the device’s endurance without having to implant it in a human body. A paper explaining the set-up for the in vitro test bench was published in the first half of 2022 in the ‘Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology’. After analysing four key FORGETDIABETES inventions, the Innovation Radar recently notified Lifecare that two of its innovations – the implantable intraperitoneal sensor and the in vitro test system – are considered “market ready.” This means that the innovations are technologically mature and the project consortium has demonstrated a strong commitment to bringing them to the market. The results are expected to become available on the Innovation Radar website in September 2022. The Lifecare inventions have also been recognised as innovations that show high disruptive potential based on the new Market Creation Potential Indicator (MCPI) developed by the European Commission’s Joint Research Council. The MCPI was created to facilitate discovery of innovations with market-creating potential. This categorisation places the two inventions amongst the top 14 % of all EU-funded innovations. Once the FORGETDIABETES (A BIONIC INVISIBLE PANCREAS TO FORGET DIABETES) BIP reaches the market, it will be able to help people with type 1 diabetes regulate their blood glucose levels just as healthy individuals do. In short, it will make it possible for these patients to stop worrying so much about their disease. For more information, please see: FORGETDIABETES project website Keywords FORGETDIABETES, diabetes, type 1 diabetes, pancreas, sensor, Innovation Radar, innovation, invention, blood sugar
