TUBING TALKS
Making diabetes management simpler with a tubeless pump People using traditional insulin pumps to manage their diabetes often have to adjust their daily lives to live comfortably with a tubed pump. Insulet wants to change that.
Insulet’s Omnipod Dash system
Sarah Faulkner | Associate Editor |
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Medical Design & Outsourcing
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For nearly three decades, hundreds of thousands of people with diabetes have relied on insulin pumps to titrate the drug that keeps their blood sugar in check. Insulin pumps have remained largely unchanged over the years, leaving the device ripe for innovation. So when Insulet’s founder, John Brooks III, set out to find a better way to deliver insulin to his diabetic son, he looked for technologies that would make his son’s life simpler. He founded Insulet in 2000 and just five years later hit the market with the first tubeless insulin delivery system. The Omnipod consists of a lightweight, disposable pod that attaches anywhere on the user’s body and carries up to three days of nonstop 9 • 2018
insulin. The pod automatically inserts a small, flexible cannula to delivers the user’s insulin. The tubeless device communicates with a remote controller, called the personal diabetes manager, to determine when to deliver insulin. “Our customers tell us that they prefer the Omnipod because it gives them consistent, round the clock, uninterrupted insulin delivery without the need for either four to five insulin injections per day or the need to be tethered to a tubed pump,” president & COO Shacey Petrovic told Medical Design & Outsourcing. Today, nearly 150,000 people living with diabetes use Insulet’s Omnipod system to control their insulin therapy. Roughly 75% of those customers,
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9/18/18 7:25 PM