We were at the UCSF Pediatric Diabetes Symposium here in San Francisco on Saturday - the 10th annual! This
is amazing every year and we got to hear some very interesting news on
research. But first off, we saw the new DexCom receiver that allows
manual entry of blood glucose - it has been approved by FDA and
launched Feb 29, a bit ahead of schedule.
It's easy as pie to use and
is now part of all new receivers. The cool factor is 1.0 for this -
really excellent. This lowers by a lot the hassle factor in requiring
users to calibrate with the One Touch Ultra - for many of us, either we
don't use an Ultra meter, we use a later version (like the Pink
UltraMini!) or we use a different meter entirely and our insurance
doesn't even cover the different strips. Now we patients can use "our
own meters" to calibrate and we have to carry around less stuff. True
there is possible user error now, because we scroll to the number
rather than it being buzzed in automatically. BUT, the way Dex Com put
together this new feature is supremely nifty and we would guess error
would be low (it's hard to screw it up) and enthusiasm high. A big
question - what about current users of DexCom? Well, excellent, we
found out current users will receive a free software upgrade as soon as
the software is approved by the FDA, likely by summer. Excellent!
Customer service points for sure in making it a free upgrade - thank
GOD I don't have to call my insurance again!
New news on pediatric trials: On
the trial front, we heard a lot of enthusiasm for combining anti-CD3
(Macrogenics is working on anti-CD3 as is TolerX) with Amylin's
exenatide, to answer the question whether efficacy of anti-CD3 can
be improved using another mechanism. Whether or not exenatide can
prevent type 1 is a big question as well, though very early stage. The
trial isn't necessarily enrolling yet (we couldn't get a clear answer
on this), but the beta cell regeneration prospects sound quite
compelling.
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