Medical Devices
Medtronic | January 08, 2024
Medtronic plc a global leader in healthcare technology, today announced CE (Conformité Européenne) Mark approval for the MiniMed™ 780G system with Simplera Sync™, a disposable, all-in-one continuous glucose monitor (CGM) requiring no fingersticks or overtape. Simplera Sync™ features an improved user experience with a simple, two-step insertion process and is half the size of previous Medtronic sensors.
The MiniMed 780G system with Simplera Sync™ sensor will be available in Europe via limited release in spring 2024. Medtronic will begin the phased commercial launch in Europe in the summer of 2024. Today, the MiniMed™ 780G system can be used with the Guardian™ 4 sensor.
The MiniMed™ 780G system is Medtronic's most advanced insulin delivery system, automatically adjusting and correcting† glucose levels every 5 minutes.§ It's the world's only system with a Meal Detection™ feature‡ that is designed to reduce post-meal hyperglycemia when users occasionally forget to give themselves insulin or underestimate the number of carbs in their snacks or meal. The system, which is available with the world's only 7-day infusion set, also features one of the lowest glucose target settings (as low as 100 mg/dL) of any automated insulin delivery system. With this "treat to target" approach, the system more closely mirrors the glucose levels of someone not living with diabetes. With both Simplera Sync™ sensor and the Guardian™ 4 sensor, no fingersticks are required.
"A challenging aspect of living with diabetes is counting carbohydrates and dosing the right amount of insulin before consuming snacks and meals. Many people underestimate their carbs, which can lead to high blood sugars (hyperglycemia). Prolonged hyperglycemia can lead to serious health problems impacting the eyes, major organs, and even cognitive function, which is particularly concerning in developing children," Robert Vigersky, M.D., Chief Medical Officer, Medtronic Diabetes, Professor of Medicine, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences "With its responsive algorithm, the MiniMed™ 780G system can help people living with diabetes even when they occasionally forget to bolus or undercount their carbs. The system takes on more of the work involved in diabetes management and helps alleviate mental burden."
"We're incredibly proud that the MiniMed™ 780G system continues to be the most widely used automated insulin delivery system in Europe since we launched it in 2020. Real-world data on over 100,000 users on the system across many geographies and cultures shows that when using recommended settings the system is delivering an average Time in Range of nearly 80%, raising the bar on what 'good' looks like2," said Que Dallara, EVP and President, Medtronic Diabetes. "With the introduction of Simplera Sync™ sensor, we're able to offer the proven benefits of our MiniMed™ 780G system with our newest and most comfortable sensor that can be applied in under 10 seconds."
The MiniMed™ 780G system with Simplera Sync™ sensor is indicated for ages 7+ and compatible with iOS and Android. Simplera Sync™ sensor is not approved by the FDA and is limited to investigational use in the U.S.
Simplera Sync™ sensor is designed to leverage Medtronic's advanced AID algorithm as part of its MiniMed™ 780G system while having a similar look and feel as the Simplera™ CGM. The Simplera™ CGM for integrated use with the InPen™ smart insulin pen received CE Mark in September 2023.
About the Diabetes Business at Medtronic
Medtronic Diabetes is on a mission to alleviate the burden of diabetes by empowering individuals to live life on their terms, with the most advanced diabetes technology and always-on support when and how they need it. We've pioneered first-of-its-kind innovations for over 40 years and are committed to designing the future of diabetes management through next-generation sensors (CGM), intelligent dosing systems, and the power of data science and AI while always putting the customer experience at the forefront.
About Medtronic
Bold thinking. Bolder actions. We are Medtronic. Medtronic plc, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, is the leading global healthcare technology company that boldly attacks the most challenging health problems facing humanity by searching out and finding solutions. Our Mission — to alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life — unites a global team of 90,000+ passionate people across more than 150 countries. Our technologies and therapies treat 70 health conditions and include cardiac devices, surgical robotics, insulin pumps, surgical tools, patient monitoring systems, and more. Powered by our diverse knowledge, insatiable curiosity, and desire to help all those who need it, we deliver innovative technologies that transform the lives of two people every second, every hour, every day. Expect more from us as we empower insight-driven care, experiences that put people first, and better outcomes for our world. In everything we do, we are engineering the extraordinary.
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Health Technology, AI
Swoop | January 09, 2024
Swoop, a leader in developing precise direct to consumer (DTC) and healthcare provider (HCP) audiences for pharmaceutical and life sciences brands, today announced the launch of its AI-powered conversational agent. This groundbreaking advancement in healthcare marketing sets a new standard for lower funnel engagement, enabling immediate, MLR-compliant virtual customer interactions via brand.com.
“Swoop’s AI-powered conversational agent marks the first groundbreaking advancement for brand.com since the introduction of pharmaceutical websites in the 1990s, addressing a pressing need for innovation in how the industry engages with their customers,” said Scott Rines, underscoring the historic significance of this achievement. “Patients and physicians are looking for real-time information, 24/7/365 during their moment of need, but are often faced with an overwhelming experience on brand.com. They come to the site seeking fast, clear answers to their health-related questions – our agent solves this.”
Market conditions continue to remain a challenge with shortages of healthcare professionals despite an uptick in customer demand for information related to their condition and treatment decisions. Meanwhile, HCPs are also less likely to allow medical reps into their offices, a shift that has continued post-Covid. Instead, these increasingly digital-native, often over-extended, physicians prefer to seek information online when their schedule permits, limiting the impact of personal promotion.
“The ability to parse the data derived from lower funnel conversations with HCPs and patients in real time will prove invaluable, as these signals will become proprietary 1st party data to optimize future marketing spend and messaging,” added Rines.
Key Features of Swoop's Conversational Agent
Dynamic Patient Conversations: Patients and HCPs can engage with conversational AI in real-time, creating a personalized and responsive user experience to drive more high-value actions on a health brand website.
MLR-Approved Medical Information: Leveraging advanced algorithms, conversational AI provides MLR-approved answers to both simple and complex medical questions in the moment of need, enhancing the overall user experience for both patients and HCPs.
Real-Time Patient Insights: Valuable real-time data from conversations accessible via dashboards allows healthcare brands to assess the effectiveness of their messaging and make informed adjustments promptly.
Scalable to Client Demands: Whether for a single brand, therapeutic area or product portfolio, Swoop conversational AI agents can scale with the needs of healthcare marketers from new product launches to covering open territories and unsupported brands.
Patient Data Security and Compliance: Swoop prioritizes patient privacy and data security, ensuring that all conversational AI agents operate in compliance with the highest industry standards and regulations.
Typical Client Results Seen by Customers
96% – Average answer success rate of inquiries
5.2 minutes – Typical conversation duration
4.7/5 – Average user satisfaction rating
800% – Increase in high-value activities on brand websites
Swoop’s conversational AI technology is built on more than 1.3 billion conversations with patients and providers and has been trained under the supervision of physicians and medically trained clinicians. Unlike generative AI, which can hallucinate and is not appropriate for direct patient and HCP interaction in the heavily regulated pharmaceutical industry, Swoop conversational AI uses fine-tuned large language models to understand user intent and surface the most relevant MLR-approved answers to ensure compliance, accuracy and, most importantly, safety.
About Swoop
Swoop, part of Real Chemistry, enables pharmaceutical and life sciences brands to reach their ideal DTC and HCP audiences at crucial moments of their diagnosis and treatment journey. Using ML/AI and real world data, Swoop is a leader in developing brand-exclusive audiences of patients and their providers for healthcare companies. Once the right customers have been targeted, brands can drive bottom-of-the-funnel engagement through Swoop’s proprietary medically trained and MLR-compliant conversational AI. Built on a privacy-by-design foundation, Swoop is both HIPAA-certified and NAI accredited, having developed more than 12,000 unique target audiences for 42 of the top 50 pharmaceutical companies safely. Its conversational AI has been implemented across 100 health brands and trained on over 1.3 billion medical conversations.
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Medical Devices
Canon Medical Systems | January 15, 2024
Canon Medical Systems Corporation and Olympus Corporation announced that we have reached an agreement to collaborate on Endoscopic Ultrasound Systems. Canon Medical will develop and manufacture diagnostic ultrasound systems used in Endoscopic Ultrasonography1 (EUS), and Olympus will perform the sales and marketing efforts. The aim of this collaboration between Canon's Aplio i8002 diagnostic ultrasound system for EUS and Olympus' Ultrasound Endoscope3 is to provide the market with advanced EUS equipment capable of delivering high-quality image diagnoses. Canon Medical and Olympus are focusing on technological advancements and enhancing diagnostic performance in the EUS field, with plans for global expansion, starting in Japan and Europe.
Canon Medical has a history of more than 100 years in the diagnostic imaging systems business, including X-ray diagnostic systems, CT, MRI, and ultrasound diagnostic systems, and provides products and services to more than 150 countries and regions worldwide. Canon Medical has been a leading company in the development of diagnostic ultrasound systems since the 1960s and has pioneered the development of A-mode (Amplitude display mode) systems for neurosurgery and linear electronic scanning systems, among others. Canon Medical's strengths lie in its advanced ultrasound image quality and proprietary technologies, such as D-THI, an image quality enhancement technology, and SMI, an imaging technology that enables the delineation of extremely slow and fine blood flow, which has been difficult to image in the past.
Olympus has contributed to elevating the standard of care through early detection, diagnosis and staging, and minimally invasive treatment since developing the world’s first practical gastrocamera. In the field of EUS, Olympus has worked closely with physicians to develop new equipment to enhance imaging and diagnostic methods and expand procedures, helping gain and maintain a high share of the global market.
Through our collaboration, the two companies will achieve further qualitative improvements in the quality of images and performance in diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment of EUS, ultimately contributing to facilitate the early detection of diseases.
Comment from Toshio Takiguchi, President and CEO, Canon Medical Systems Corporation
“We have been promoting our business with diagnostic imaging at its core under the philosophy of 'Made for Life,' which expresses our desire to contribute to medical care that protects precious lives. We have a long history in diagnostic ultrasound systems and have developed unique technologies that contribute to the early detection of diseases in cooperation with doctors around the world. We are very pleased to collaborate with Olympus, a leading endoscope manufacturer, in the EUS field, which we have not been able to cover adequately until now, to deliver superior solutions to more patients.”
Comment from Frank Drewalowski, Executive Officer and Endoscopic Solutions Division Head, Olympus Corporation
“Olympus aims to improve patients’ quality of life through early diagnosis made available with Endoscopic Ultrasound Systems. In the field of EUS, diagnostic ultrasound systems are very important, and we are pleased to have a cooperative relationship with Canon Medical, which has advanced ultrasound imaging technology. Canon Medical and Olympus will continue to introduce products and technology that address the needs of the patients, healthcare professionals, and the broader medical industry.”
This examination uses ultrasound attached to the tip of an endoscope to observe the outer organs (pancreas, gallbladder, bile ducts, liver, etc.) from the stomach and duodenum. Compared to the approach from the body surface, the target organs can be observed at close range, allowing detailed diagnosis with clearer images. In the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, EUS is recognized as having the same diagnostic capability as contrast-enhanced CT and MRI in the "Guidelines for Pancreatic Cancer Treatment (2022)" in Japan. EUS-FNA (Endoscopic Ultrasonography-FNA: a test to collect tumor cells using an ultrasound endoscope) enables qualitative tissue diagnosis by minimally invasive cell and tissue collection and is established worldwide as a diagnostic method when pancreatic cancer is suspected. In addition to endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP), which is the first choice for stent placement for obstructive jaundice, endoscopic ultrasound-assisted biliary drainage (EUS-BD) using the EUS-FNA technique is now available. With the advent of these devices, the endoscopic treatment area of Interventional EUS has been attracting increasing attention in recent years.
About Canon Medical Systems
Canon Medical offers a full range of diagnostic medical imaging solutions including CT, Diagnostic and Interventional X-ray, Ultrasound and MR, as well as a full suite of Healthcare IT solutions, across the globe. In line with our continued Made for Life philosophy, patients are at the heart of everything we do. Our mission is to provide medical professionals with solutions that support their efforts in contributing to the health and wellbeing of patients worldwide. Our goal is to deliver optimum health opportunities for patients through uncompromised performance, comfort and safety features.
At Canon Medical, we work hand in hand with our partners - our medical, academic and research community. We build relationships based on transparency, trust and respect. Together as one, we strive to create industry-leading solutions that deliver an enriched quality of life
About Olympus
At Olympus, we are committed to Our Purpose of making people’s lives healthier, safer and more fulfilling. As a global medical technology company, we partner with healthcare professionals to provide best-in-class solutions and services for early detection, diagnosis and minimally invasive treatment, aiming to improve patient outcomes by elevating the standard of care in targeted disease states. For more than 100 years, Olympus has pursued a goal of contributing to society by producing products designed with the purpose of delivering optimal outcomes for its customers around the world.
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Health Technology
Rudolf Riester GmbH | January 29, 2024
Rudolf Riester GmbH, a global leader in medical technology, proudly announces the full market launch of its comprehensive Telemedicine offering. Already in active use across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the solution from the trusted Riester brand delivers industry-leading quality and versatility through integration of a broad range of medical devices to meet the needs of diverse user scenarios.
"Since its founding 75 years ago, Riester has been a pioneer in providing accurate and efficient diagnostic devices for front-line healthcare. We have brought this passion and expertise to the creation of our telemedicine solution," said Dr. Georgiana Gasquères, Global Business Unit Director, Telemedicine at Riester. "Now we empower healthcare providers worldwide with the tools they need to deliver accurate diagnosis and exceptional care to every patient, everywhere, and to do it more sustainably." Riester is demonstrating its Telemedicine Case and Cart offerings at the Arab Health show in Dubai, 29 January – 1 February 2024, at booth SA.E30.
Traveling nurses with South African healthcare innovator EQiGate are already evaluating dozens of patients every week with the Riester Telemedicine Case. "EQiGate selected the Riester Telemedicine solution for its high quality, comprehensiveness, and versatile, Windows-based compatibility with our portfolio of operating applications," stated Braam Kruger, CEO at EQiGate. "The Riester solution integrates seamlessly with our Hospital at Home concept, enabling us to bring the hospital to the patient, a healthcare paradigm shift that yields significant cost and time savings for both the healthcare system and the patient."
At Arab Health, Riester is showcasing the integration of their industry-leading ri-sonic® E-stethoscope with the eMurmur® AI platform. Digital auscultation with ri-sonic and eMurmur AI enables the early detection and analysis of heart murmurs, informing better, more timely decisions about treatment pathways.
To demonstrate their commitment to raising heart health awareness and improving quality of life through accurate and efficient diagnosis, Riester is offering complimentary advisory heart checks to all exhibition attendees at their booth at Arab Health, conducted by a professional cardiologist. "Our participation at Arab Health reaches beyond showcasing our technological advancements; it is about educating and engaging with the public – including Arab Health attendees – and healthcare professionals," said Irina Zhdanova, CEO of Riester. "By providing free advisory heart checks, we emphasise the significance of regular cardiac health assessments and demonstrate how innovative technology can be a pivotal tool in advancing diagnostic cardiac care to improve health outcomes. This is a perfect way to honor Riester’s 75-year heritage and act on our vision and mission."
About Rudolf Riester GmbH
Since its founding in Germany in 1948, Rudolf Riester GmbH has been a pioneering force in improving quality of life through accurate and efficient diagnosis on the front-line of healthcare. By developing and manufacturing high-quality, market-leading medical diagnostic products, Riester has earned a global reputation for quality, reliability, and innovation in the healthcare sector, with a presence in over 150 countries. Specializing in diagnostic devices, Riester's product portfolio includes telemedicine solutions as well as stethoscopes, blood pressure monitors, otoscopes, ophthalmoscopes, and other medical equipment. Riester is part of the Halma plc group of companies.
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