What’s old is new again
A consistent theme in the race to discover the Holy Grail of glucose monitoring, a non-invasive glucose monitor, is old unsuccessful ideas never die. Time may pass but these old unproven ideas come back from the dead reincarnated as if they never existed in the first place. The most recent example comes from researchers at Texas A&M University who according to an article posted on www.thebatt.com;
“Two research labs aim to develop a device the size of a rice grain that can be implanted in the skin and will glow certain colors when fluorescent light is shined upon it. The colors will correspond to the diabetic’s glucose level, allowing an individual to monitor their health without the invasive, and sometimes painful, procedures available today.
Heading the labs that seek to develop this device is Gerard Cote, director of the Center for Remote Healthcare Technology, and Melissa Grunlan, director of undergraduate programs in the Department of Biomedical Engineering.”
Now if this effort lead by Mr. Cote sounds familiar it should as the fluorescent sensor under the skin approach has been by tried by numerous companies – take a look
Sensor Technologies – Sensors for Medicine and Science (“S4MS,” then “SMSI,” now Senseonics) –BioPeak -MiniMed -Glumetrics (Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) bought the IP when Glumetrics went under last year, they just had a new patent application publish to use the sensor in tissue instead of blood) -Becton-Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) –Precisense -Motorola – Argose
Mr. Cote himself is big believer in this technology. He was a primary proponent of “optical rotation in the aqueous humor” back when he was at UConn in the 90s. Although Coté did get Freedom Meditech to buy into that approach for their iSugarX (which has not yet been developed after many years).
Frankly Diabetic Investor isn’t shocked that Cote’ is at it again nor are we surprised that he was able to obtain funding for this latest effort. This is what these people do, although there are numerous issues with this approach, people still believe that a non-invasive glucose monitor is the Holy Grail of diabetes devices.
Still Diabetic Investor feels obligated to expose these efforts for what they are, nothing more than a waste of time and money. That no matter how good a technology may look at first glance the devil is always in the details and when it comes to this approach the details clearly state it just doesn’t work. Not that matters any as we have seen time and time again when it comes to non-invasive monitoring the facts never get in the way of a good fantasy.
