Close Concerns Weblog

ADA expo on Saturday Feb 2nd in SF!!!

I was told today that if you do a google search for the words: (Relevant diabetes topics Kelly Close) the first thing that pops up is the ADA Expo!  My husband Johnny asked if I found this out by googling myself and I said I seriously avoided that because I found a couple of years back there is a porn star (apparently quite successful given the number of links) called Kelly Close!

So I thought I’d put in a plug for an amazing panel I will be moderating at the ADA Expo in Santa Clara, Ca on February 2nd 2008. I’m really looking forward to it and the organizers have put together a fabulous group including star blogger Amy Tenderich of Diabetes Mine fame, Dr. Karen Earle of the California Pacific Medical Center, and Karen Talmadge, the brilliant former CEO of Kyphon (orthopedic), which was purchased last year by Medtronic for $4 billion.

A win for GLP-1, a blow for inhaled mealtime insulin

Recently, Novo Nordisk made an announcement that they were shutting down their AERx inhaled insulin program because inhaled fast-acting insulin, as it currently exists, “does not offer significant clinical or convenience benefits over injections of modern insulin,” said president and CEO, Lars R. Sorenson. The company said on a conference call the evening of the announcement that it would refocus its efforts in the inhalation market on long-acting insulin as well as GLP-1 therapies.

When companies talk, symbiosis happens...

When two powerhouses  in their respective fields get together to work towards a common goal,  we have good things to look forward to. Insulet is the company that manufactures the OmniPod, a tubeless, disposable insulin pump – we like to think about it as the “no strings attached” insulin delivery method.   DexCom makes continuous glucose monitoring CGM devices – it is, alongside Medtronic, one of two companies with an FDA approved CGM device.

Restoring health to prominence in the healthcare economics debate

A study published in the January/February 2008 issue of the journal Health Affairs, titled “Impact of decreasing co-payments on medication adherence within a disease management environment” caught our eye so we figured we’d tell you about it because it has implications for how patients behave when they have monetary incentives – this idea has been tossed around a lot but there hasn’t been a lot of data on it so this was a welcome change!