Chipping Away
With both Tandem and Insulet reporting earnings yesterday two messages are beginning to emerge when it comes to the insulin pump market. First, both Tandem and Insulet are gaining momentum each doing well with their existing products while developing exciting new products. Next if the folks in Northridge aren’t worried, they should be. Medtronic may be king of the hill for the moment but uneasy is the king who wears...
Just what does Novo sell?
With the insulin markets commoditizing and becoming a volume business, GLP-1’s is one of the few bright spots in the diabetes drug sector. Never was this more apparent than by looking at the results Novo Nordisk released this morning and looking through the slides that accompanied the conference. Someone new to our wacky world seeing this for the first time just might get the impression that Novo is a GLP-1...
Scary Results
We’re not sure if they celebrate Halloween in Paris but there is no way to sugarcoat the results Sanofi released this morning. When it comes to their diabetes franchise the results were downright scary; per their press release “In the third quarter, global Diabetes sales decreased 9.2% to €1,375 million, due to lower glargine (Lantus® and Toujeo® ) sales in the U.S. Third-quarter U.S. Diabetes sales were down 24.3% to €571...
Happy Birthday Humulin
Today the folks in Indy are not just celebrating the Colts victory yesterday they are also celebrating the 36th anniversary of the FDA’s approval of Humulin. The approval process of this drug was outlined in a nice piece written by Henry Miller in today’s Wall Street Journal. Dr. Miller was the founding director of the Office of Biotechnology at the FDA. In the piece Dr. Miller writes; “The back story, however,...
Peanut Butter and Jelly
To be honest we have no idea how many different combinations of the classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich there are. Back in the day when Momma Kliff was raising her four boys all we had was one kind of peanut butter and maybe three of four different flavors of jelly. Today there are hundreds of peanut butters, crispy, chunky, low-fat, no fat, etc. There is an equal number of...
Think People
While Amazon’s earnings may not have lived up to expectations they have once again rocked someone’s world and this time it’s our wacky world. Yesterday the company made the deep dive into the diabetes pool with some conventional meters. The meters aren’t overly special, nor do they do anything that different from the horde of way cool whiz bang clouded enabled systems that do everything but clean your kitchen. Now with...
A new “Choice”
As we reported Amazon is making the deep dive into diabetes and today it became official. Per a press release; “Choice is Amazon’s latest advance in global healthcare — a wellness brand developed in partnership with Arcadia Group. Our debut range of blood glucose monitors and blood pressure monitors all feature supporting mobile apps that offer measurement tracking, data mobility, and reminders, to help more people get pro-active about their health.” Yes, my...
And so, it goes
Yesterday Novo Nordisk announced they were expanding their partnership with Flex Digital Health. Per a story on the FireceBiotech web site; “Novo Nordisk has tapped Flex Digital Health’s internet of things platform to create new digital tools for people with diabetes. The duo previously teamed up on connected insulin pens, two of which are slated to launch early next year. Their existing partnership focuses on building connectivity into devices, such as nonconnected...
Why it matters
When it comes to any medical device there is one inescapable fact; these devices fail and/or malfunction. This as they say comes with the territory. However, when an insulin pump fails or malfunctions it can, has and unfortunately does kill. As we keep repeating insulin when dosed improperly can kill a patient. Today this issue is more complex than ever as insulin pumps have transformed from semi-smart devices largely controlled by...
It’s not the how but the why
The question isn’t whether Medtronic has a problem, the question is just how big is this problem, can they fix it before serious damage is done or are they even prepared to acknowledge they have a problem at all. We say this as yesterday we finally spoke with Medtronic, more specifically we spoke with Alejandro Galindo VP & BU President, Intensive Insulin Management (who by the way acknowledged during the...