A novel method to improve treatment of type 1 diabetes

More than 465 million people are living with diabetes globally, of which around 10 % have type 1 diabetes. Being a chronic disease, it causes a substantial burden to patients, and a financial burden to society. Intensive research is ongoing to develop new treatments and new technical devices to better cope with the disease, and the diabetes device market size was valued at USD 25.9 billion in 2020. NTNU has developed novel technical solution to be used in treatment of type 1 diabetes. The invention results in increased local blood flow and thereby faster insulin absorption and reduced delay in continuous glucose monitoring (CGM). This will improve the performance of diabetes devices, both insulin pumps and CGM, and will be an important step towards developing a fully automated artificial pancreas. The increase in local blood flow has been verified in a feasibility study with healthy volunteers. The next step is to verify effects on the speed of insulin absorption and on the reduction of delay in CGMs in patients with type 1 diabetes in a Proof-of-concept project. The main goal of the commercialization project is to license the solution to relevant industry partners. As the method might improve the performance of most diabetic devices in the market, there are many potential licensees. The commercialization strategy will be based on market insight gained in the Proof-of-Concept project.