Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Cozmo Insulin Pump no longer being sold

I was sitting in the dentist's office this afternoon and looking at some tweets, when this one from Manny caught my eye.

It pointed to his page about the news that Smiths-Medical is getting out of the diabetes market and taking the Cozmo insulin pump off the market.

My jaw almost dropped. I've been a happy Cozmo insulin pump user for about 18 months and I had planned to continue using them. Smiths-Medical distributed and supported the Cozmo pump. They announced today their "intent to stop selling the Deltec Cozmo® insulin pump, and manage an orderly, carefully controlled exit from the diabetes business over time."

Smiths-Medical has created a special web page with all the details about this announcement. It also contains answers to a set of frequently asked questions (FAQs). Basically those of us with pumps will be supported until the end of our warranty and Smiths-Medical will continue to provide supplies and support for the Cozmo pump.

As Kerri pointed out in her post on the announcement, this wasn't a big market for Smiths-Medical and it required a large support organization. So perhaps it was inevitable.

I've enjoyed and benefited from the features and flexibility of the Cozmo pump and I'm sorry to see it disappear from the market. We're now left with three main players in the insulin pump market: Minimed Medtronic; Animas; and Insulet Omnipod. I'd really like to see much more competition.

Perhaps some new ideas will happen as a results of Amy's 2009 DiabetesMine™ Design Challenge. I'd sure like to see another choice when it comes to insulin pumps.

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Sunday, March 01, 2009

Moving diabetes design forward

Amy Tenderich of DiabetesMine has just announced the start of the 2009 DiabetesMine Design Challenge. This year the grand prize is $10,000. So you can improve the state of diabetes design and win some serious prize money.

If you need some ideas, Amy's posted videos of last year's competition entry videos.

The competition is open from tomorrow March 2, 2009, to end of day (PST) on May 1st, 2009. Each entry is judged on three criteria: Relevance; Clinical Efficacy; Aesthetics. You can submit a video or a paper describing your idea. Full details are on the entry page for the competition.

I know we've got got lots of devices that are efficacious (FDA criteria), but with lousy design. This presents a great opportunity to make life easier for everyone with diabetes.

So think about anything diabetes related that's driving you nuts. Have you some way to fix the problem? Or maybe a completely new idea to make it easier to live with diabetes. I can't wait to see what folks come up with.

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