Diabetes
There are about 30 million diabetic patients in the US alone and over 200 million globally. The potential benefit to human health of a device that allows for continuous glucose monitoring is enormous. Currently, there is no totally implantable device for continuous glucose monitoring available on the market. Therefore, diabetics must rely on finger pricking (approximately five times per day) and external testing. Besides the associated pain, inconvenience and lack of patient compliance the current technology does not provide continuous monitoring which is necessary for corrective feedback and optimum glucose-level management to prevent hypo- and hyper-glycemic events as well as to minimize fluctuations in glucose levels that lead to the many debilitating complications associated with diabetes. GLUCOWIZZARDTM is designed to provide continuous glucose monitoring and to interface with a variety of drug-dispensing units to achieve closed-loop insulin delivery and thereby tight control of glucose levels, preventing hypo- and hyper-glycemic events as well as debilitating disease complications.
Our interdisciplinary team in collaboration with the University of Connecticut has designed and developed a glucose sensor platform that is compact, low-power, standalone unit, suitable for continuous or on-demand glucose monitoring. This revolutionary design allowed us to shrink the implantable component down to (0.5 x 0.5 x 5 mm) and develop the GLUCOWIZZARDTM line of glucose sensor and associated monitoring devices. At present, our team is actively working to commercialize GLUCOWIZZARDTM and make it available to researchers conducting glucose studies in various laboratory animals. The miniaturized size of GLUCOWIZZARDTM enables it to be easily implanted to the smallest of lab animals (mice, rats, etc.) and continuously monitor their glucose levels.
The next phase will involve the introduction and testing of GLUCOWIZZARDTM to human subjects. During this phase, our team intends to develop the appropriate in vivo protocols for the required FDA approval.