Mark Chapman, interim director of medical technology at NICE, said, “Some people living with type 1 diabetes struggle to manage their condition, even though they are doing everything asked of them by their diabetes team. This technology is the best intervention to help them control their diabetes, barring a cure.
“At a time when the number of people with diabetes is rising, we have to focus on what matters most to people who use NHS services by balancing recommending the best care with value for money.”
Inventions to control diabetes
This is not the only invention meant to control diabetes. In June of 2022, scientists at the Department of Biosystems Science and Engineering, ETH Zurich, Switzerland, devised of a self-sufficient push-button device that contains engineered human cells and that can be implanted directly under the skin. The implant was found to restore normal sugar levels in a mouse model of type 1 diabetes.
“It is a quantum leap for merging electronics with genetics and kick-off for real-world therapeutic applications,” Martin Fussenegger, researcher and Professor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering, told IE in an interview at the time.
In August of 2022, MIT engineers and collaborators developed another artificial pancreas, a device that can prevent scar tissue caused by implantable devices that release insulin to the body. In a study of mice, they showed that when mechanical actuation was incorporated into a soft robotic device, the device remained functional for much longer than a typical drug-delivery implant by inflating and deflating for five minutes every 12 hours.