7.1 M Euro grant to fund development of portable DIAdvisor

United Kingdom - Toumaz Technology Limited, the leading provider of ultra-low power wireless infrastructure for body monitoring solutions, today announces its participation in a major collaborative research project that has been granted 7.1 million Euros to develop a unique personalised blood glucose prediction tool aimed at improving the lives of millions of diabetes patients. The grant award, made under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) of the European Community, will fund a four-year research and development project into the "DIAdvisor™" portable glucose prediction system, that will utilise Toumaz's breakthrough Sensium™ wireless body monitoring technology. The large-scale project is being coordinated by Novo Nordisk A/S, a world leader in diabetes care, and will be delivered by a consortium of 13 medical, industrial and academic partners, including the European region of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF).

 

The development of the Personal Glucose Predictive Diabetes Advisor (DIAdvisor) is aimed at providing insulin dependent patients with much greater control in managing their condition. Current diabetes management techniques are restricted to the analysis of blood glucose history, with almost no ability to predict what blood glucose levels might be in several hours' time. The DIAdvisor system will leverage sophisticated analysis of physiological inputs from non-intrusive body-worn wireless monitors based on the Sensium technology platform. Prediction of blood glucose levels will come from glucose measurements, insulin delivery data and specific patient parameters, to allow patients at any time to actively and accurately predict their short-term blood glucose outlook. This unique tool will enable diabetics to optimise their insulin therapy or take other proactive measures to regulate glucose levels, such as food intake and exercise - thereby significantly reducing the risk, occurrence and potential treatment costs of hypoglycaemic events and the debilitating complications that arise from long term hyperglycaemia. The system will also be capable of wirelessly connecting and providing information and trend data directly to healthcare providers, to enable further therapy improvements and treatment cost reduction.

 

Toumaz's role in the project will be to implement the DIAdvisor hardware and software platform, leveraging the Sensium intelligent data acquisition platform and networking infrastructure to enable multiple vital signs measurements from non-intrusive body-worn monitors to be taken and merged with manually entered 'spot' measurements (such as food intake), providing the key data for the creation of physiological mathematical modeling, control and prediction algorithms. The resulting analysis and prediction information will then be able to be wirelessly transmitted to a healthcare provider advisory service, with recommended action and treatment advice presented to the patient via a handheld mobile device such as a Personal Digital Assistant (PDA).

 

First stage data gathering and clinical trials are planned to start in August 2008, with initial data expected by the end of the year.

 

"Insulin-treated diabetes is one of the most difficult therapies to manage, because of the difficulty in actively predicting glucose levels. What this exciting collaborative project delivers is a gathering of the most eminent experts in the fields of medicine, healthcare, science and technology to enable the creation of a totally unique system to improve diabetes control, optimise therapy, and ensure better qualify of life for the large populations of Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes patients," comments Dr Alison Burdett, Director of Technology for Toumaz Technology. "With DIAdvisor, we will be putting a sophisticated treatment advisor in the hands of patients for the first time, empowering them in their own healthcare management and significantly reducing the likelihood of serious complications and recurrent hospitalisation due to poor glucose control. For healthcare providers, this will have a significant positive impact on cost reduction for the treatment of diabetes."

 

The massive increase in the incidence of diabetes is now a major global healthcare challenge. Clear demographic trends such as a growing obesity epidemic, aging populations and increasingly sedentary lifestyles have led to an explosion in the incidence of diabetes, particularly Type 2 diabetes. In the European Union, average diabetes prevalence rates are now at 7.5 per cent, with a predicted growth to 16 per cent by 2025.

 

Up to 50 per cent of diabetes cases are currently estimated to be undiagnosed. As a result, the global market for medical devices for diabetics is now put at more than 5 billion Euros annually.

 

The full list of participants in the DIAdvisor consortium is: Novo Nordisk AS (Denmark), Johannes Kepler Universitaet Linz (Austria), Lunds Universitet (Sweden), Universita Degli Studi di Padova (Italy), Centre Hospitalier Regional Universitaire de Montpellier (France), Toumaz Technology Ltd (UK), Sensor Technology and Devices Ltd (UK), Ondalys SARL (France), Romsoft SRL (Romania), Institut Klinicke a Experimentalni Mediciny (Czech Republic), RICAM, Oesterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften (Austria), Ramboll Danmark A/S (Denmark), Federation Internationale du Diabete Region Europe (Belgium).

 

For further information about the DIAdvisor project, please visit: www.cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=PROJ_ICT&ACTION=D&DOC=77&CAT=PROJ&QUERY=1205498990663&RCN=8545 .

 

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