The seven-day infusion set is here. What’s next from ConvaTec Infusion Care? - a podcast by Stacey Simms

When we heard about a new seven day infusion set approved this past summer, we had a lot of questions! We've been told since the very first day of pumping to only use the inset for 3 days tops and to always rotate the site. How did they get seven days out of one of these without skin irritation and with good absorption? We asked the folks who make the inset to come on the show and explain.

Turns out, ConvaTec Infusion Care makes the insets for Medtronic, Tandem, Ypsomed, Dana RS and Roche pumps. So while I started off talking about the longer-wear version, the conversation you’ll hear includes everything from proper insertion technique, their challenges teaching users best practices, improvements they're making to the cannula and more. In this interview you will hear: John M Lindskog, President & COO, Matthias Heschel, Vice President, Research & Development and Intellectual Property Rights and Dr. Kerem Ozer, Director Infusion Care Clinical Development

Good article about using insets correctly and understanding the different types.

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Episode Transcription Below: 

Stacey Simms  0:00

Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario Health manage your blood glucose levels, increase your possibilities by Gvoke Hypopen, the first premixed auto injector for very low blood sugar, and by Dexcom take control of your diabetes and live life to the fullest with Dexcom.

This is Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

This week, how much have you thought about the way your insulin pump connects to your body? Honestly, it's where a lot can go wrong. The people who make the insets know that they have come a long way. And they're trying to make it better.

 

Matthias Heschel  0:40

It's what some people call their Achilles heel in the arm therapy were very much aware of it. And our approach simply is instead of doing product design at the drawing board, to the product design in the field, really taking the patient at the core of our design process, really understanding behaviors, understanding what could go wrong, and then design the product accordingly.

 

Stacey Simms  1:05

That's Dr. Matthias Heschel, head of R&D for ConvaTec infusion care. He, the CEO and the Medical Director sat down with me to talk about longer were tips for users and what's next for this really important part of pumping.

This podcast is not intended as medical advice. If you have those kinds of questions, please contact your health care provider.

Welcome to another week of the show, you're always so glad to have you here. We aim to educate and inspire about diabetes with a focus on those who use insulin. I am really excited and happy to talk to the guys from ConvaTec. This week, you know, they were frank, they were really up for anything. And I have said for years that insets are the weak link in pumping. And they really opened my eyes to some of the issues and what we can do as users or you know, as parents of users to make things a little bit better. And of course, they're working on improvements as well.

But before we jump in a little bit of housekeeping, I want to talk about the rest of the year schedule for the podcast, I can't believe we're in well into December at this point. Right now the plan is to keep going with these longer format. The interview shows that air on Tuesdays, and we'll have that there shouldn't really be any interruption or any week skipped through the rest of the year and into January. I'll let you know if that changes. But that is the plan right now.

As for the newscast, I will probably not have a newscast on the 22nd of December. Again, I reserve the right to jump in and make a liar out of myself. There is breaking news sometimes late December is when the FDA makes a lot of decisions. So we could have some breaking news. But I would say right now, it looks like at least that one date will not have the live newscast on Wednesday on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. And so then I will not be turning it into one because that would be a podcast on Christmas Eve and I don't think there's a lot of demand for you to listen on Christmas Eve but you tell me if there is I'm happy to serve and try to put all that together.

Another quick announcement and I'm actually going to talk more about this after the interview is that book number two is in the works. The second World's Worst diabetes mom, I signed on the dotted line to deliver that next year. So we have a timetable. We have a theme. I have lots of stuff. I'll tell you about that again after the interview, but man, I'm really excited about it.

Alright, a little bit more about our guests. ConvaTec infusion care makes insets for both of the tubed pumps available in the US they make for Tandem they make for Medtronic, they don't make Omni pods. They also make insets for Ypsomed and other tubed pumps abroad. But if you use a tubed pump in the US you use their products. In this interview you will hear John Lindskog The President and CEO, Dr. Matthias Heschel, the head of R&D, research and development and Dr. Kerem Ozer, the Medical Director, I worry a bit about three voices. I mean, really, it's for with mine, but we do I think we do make it clear. And there is always a transcript over at diabetes connections.com at the episode homepage, if you find it easier to you know some people follow along, reading as they listen. Some people prefer to read my transcription software. Let me tell you got a workout on this one. It doesn't speak diabetes very well to begin with. And as you can imagine, there was a lot of technical stuff but we did it we got it and it's there for you. But I think that these three were very frank and gave us a lot of information a national here. They have a question for us.

That's coming right up but first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dario health. Bottom line you need a plan of action with diabetes. And we've been lucky that Benny's endo has helped us with that and that he understands the plan has to change. As Benny gets older you want that kind of support. So take your diabetes management to the next level with Dario health. Their published studies demonstrate high impact results for active users like improved in range percentage within three months reduction of a one C within three months and a 58% decrease in occurrences of severe hypoglycemic events. Try Dario’s diabetes success plan and make a difference in your Diabetes management, go to my dario.com forward slash diabetes dash connections for more proven results and for information about the plan.

John, Matthias and Kerem, thank you so much for joining me. We have a lot to talk about. And I feel like I've ever been to the company at my disposal. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this.

 

John Lindskog  5:20

Thank you, Stacey. This is John and thanks for having this opportunity to talk with you. Maybe just a couple of words of ConvaTec infusion care. I'm the president and CEO of that part of ConvaTec. We are based out of Denmark and out of Mexico, we have one plant making a few sets in Denmark, and we have two plants almost side to side in Mexico, and also is fully dedicated to making few sets for subcutaneous infusion. Today with me, I have the Matthias and I Kerem and if you could just kind of introduce yourself briefly.

 

Matthias Heschel  5:58

Yeah, this is Matthias. I'm heading research and development at ConvaTec Infusion Care. I’ve been with the company for 10 years. Just happy to be here.

 

Dr. Kerem Ozer  6:07

Hi, everyone. I'm Kerem Moser and I'm the medical director for ConvaTec infusion care. I'm an endocrinologist by background. I've been with ConvaTec for about four months now. And prior to that I was in practice seeing endocrinology and diabetes patients for about 15 years, and very excited to be here.

 

Stacey Simms  6:28

Wonderful. Well, thank you all so much for joining me. We have a lot of questions, questions for my listeners questions that I have as a mom of a kid who has used insets since he was two years old. So let me jump in and ask about the newest infusion set as I see it, which is with Medtronic and Matthias. Let me ask you about this if I could. we're hearing really interesting things seven day up to seven day wear, which I believe rolled out in Europe first is now approved in the United States. How I don't want to ask you to give any trade secrets away. But how do you get it to last so long when we've been told for years that two to three days is the maximum for an infusion set?

 

Matthias Heschel  7:03

Yeah, actually, the answer is very simple. Stacey. Medtronic, they provided quite some details about the year back at the virtual conference. So Medtronic, they added a proprietary connector, which connects the tubing to the pump reservoir. And this connector stabilizes the instrument. On top of the canula, a new tubing, which contains the preservatives, contains the antimicrobial effect of the preservatives. And the last thing is that we added a new adhesive to keep the infusion set on the body for up to seven days. So basically three things. New connector, new tubing, containing preservatives and a new adhesive.

 

Stacey Simms  7:48

So it was kind of a partnership with Medtronic. It's not all on the inset itself.

 

Matthias Heschel  7:52

It's a partnership with Medtronic, and they in general, talking about new product development, future products. It's all at system level. So we cannot just develop a new infusion set. We need to take the reservoir into account we need to take algorithms into account so it's it's always a close partnership with pump manufacturers.

 

Stacey Simms  8:15

how have people received it? Or is it working well, is the adhesive doing okay, on people's skin?

 

Matthias Heschel  8:20

It seems so we have received some first indication Medtronic percent that results at the diabetes technology meeting here this week, actually. And that has shown that there are lower occurrence of hyperglycemic events. There are fewer occlusions. And I think the average wear time was seven days. So it seems that the patients that have come on to an extended wear infusion set are really happy and the infusion sets perform as designed.

 

Stacey Simms  8:57

Before I move on from this one more question for you Mateus if I could. I'm curious, are you working with other pump companies on longer where infusion sets? Or is this going to be a Medtronic exclusive for the foreseeable future?

 

Matthias Heschel  9:10

Well, extending the wear time of infusion sets, that's the unmet need, number one among all patients, so and that's in general interest from all pump manufacturers to have extended wear products in the portfolio. So yes, we're working on the portfolio of infusion sets.

 

Stacey Simms  9:30

Kerem, let me move over to you if I could for this question. As a parent of a child with type one. We were schooled early on the importance of rotating sites, right? You can't let an infusion set go in the same part of the body over and over again. But most kids and frankly most adults I've talked to who use these products do kind of have a favorite spot. The body. Can you talk a little bit about Yes, I guess there the importance of rotating, but something like a seven day wear or what's coming in the future. Is there a possibility that it could be a little less important? to move that around, or am I dreaming?

 

Dr. Kerem Ozer  10:02

That's a really good question, Stacey sort of looking forward, just taking a quick step back, just like you said, the importance of sort of proper rotation is something we always talk about in clinic yet in real life, we know that people have their favorite sites. And part of the idea of the rotation, of course, is to reduce scarring and is to reduce lipohypertrophy. I know your listeners will be very familiar with this. But of course, when we say lipohypertrophy, we're talking about sort of the hardening that bumpiness of the layer right under the skin, that subcutaneous area. And when I think about lipohypertrophy, there are several factors that increase that risk, you know, multiple daily injections, pumps, continuous glucose monitors, sometimes the type of insulin being used, and that really changes from person to person reusing pen, needles, all those factors, even higher insulin doses tend to cause more of a higher risk, higher diabetes, duration is a higher risk. Now, when I think about those factors, some of them are you can't change those like diabetes, duration. Some of those factors, you can change by rotating things, when you look at something like extended wear, I think one advantage is you are going to need to change it out less often. So you're technically changing it, you know, less often, it's probably best practice to still change the site and rotate the site. But one thing I think that's going to be even clearer, and I see this all the time, you know, when I talk with my patients, is, I think it's going to be important to realize subtle changes in the characteristics of that site, even before you start feeling hardening of the skin, even before one starts feeling that bumpiness if you notice that a site is starting to not respond as well, you know, you're feeling that you're needing more insulin, you're feeling that the dynamics are changing. That's I think, when it's going to be really key to make that site change.

 

Stacey Simms  12:21

Interesting. I have kind of said, it's a little bit flippant, but I've said since we started pumping, 14 and a half years ago that gosh, these insets are the weak link in pumping. And what I mean by that is they can fall off easier, they can get occluded, they only last a couple of days. John, maybe let me ask you, can you talk us through a little bit about how you're really trying to make these better? Because I feel like I can have the greatest algorithm in the world on my pump and if the darn thing is flapping on my kids off my kids stomach it's not gonna work

 

right back to our conversation. Yeah, he does answer that question. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Gvoke Hypopen. You know low blood sugar feels horrible. You can get shaky and sweaty or even feel like you are going to pass out – there are lots of symptoms and they can be different for everyone. I’m so glad we have a different option to treat very low blood sugar: Gvoke HypoPen. It’s the first autoinjector to treat very low blood sugar. Gvoke HypoPen is premixed and ready to go, with no visible needle. Before Gvoke, people needed to go through a lot of steps to get glucagon treatments ready to be used. This made emergency situations even more challenging and stressful. This is so much better and I’m grateful we have it on hand! Find out more – go to diabetes dash connections dot com and click on the Gvoke logo. Gvoke shouldn’t be used in patients with pheochromocytoma or insulinoma – visit gvoke glucagon dot com slash risk.

Now back to John Lindskog answering my question about making the insets more foolproof.

 

John Lindskog  14:00

No, no, no, I totally understand what you're saying I will say and then maybe Matthias can chime in after this that, you know the products like insets, they go through a quite extensive and long development program before they actually come to the market and the products also available on basis on customer feedback. And since this is a medical device, it's very highly regulated in the US through the FDA requirements and Europe through CE and in many, many other countries through local legislation. So the level of rigor and preciseness that you have to do in this work is quite extensive for us to develop a product and mass make it into volumes, which we're talking about millions of units per year does require quite a bit of development work to go there. And there is a little bit of you know there's a lot of factors that play into to the to the development, particularly manufacturing of the infuser set, the quality has, of course, to be the highest possible within the requirements. And there's also, of course, a economical part of it, where you need the competitive cost in order to have these products on the market. So I mean, the process that you see today is actually a combination of all the the user input, and of course, also about, you know, the requirements from regulatory authorities. And, and you know, what can be made in very high scale, we, you know, and strive to improve the products along the way, however, even what may seem as being very small, and my new changes, does actually require a complete change process, which is very well documented, and in that sense, also kind of lengthy process. And I don't know Matthias. If you have any anything to add to that, yeah, quick

 

Matthias Heschel  15:56

Yeah, but I would like to add is that we have, we have about 1 million pump users worldwide. And as a create variability, it's both the interpatient variability and intra patient variability. So huge differences between patients and also huge differences between the use conditions during a day for the same patient. So what we are going after in our product design is really making as robust designs as as reasonably possible. And best example is, is the newest infusion set on the market, which is the base of the extended wear we talked about earlier, an infusion set we call Mio advance which virtually only has one user step. So you hit the bottom activation button and it produces the soft cannula, retracts the needle and detaches the serter all instantly. I mean, all the steps happening in a fraction of a second. And that means you're basically take the patient out of the equation, the patient cannot do any mistakes during the insertion process. And there we see a huge reduction in in failures on the market. So to your question, Stacey, I mean, we understand that the infusion set is the weakest link, it's what some people call the Achilles heel. In pump therapy, we are very much aware of it. And our approach simply is, instead of doing product design at the drawing board, to the product design, in the field, really taking the patient in the core of our design process, really understanding behaviors, understanding what could go wrong, and then design the product accordingly. And we have seen the first successes and they hope to see further successes.

 

Stacey Simms  17:40

You know, that's a great point about the very simple insertion of the Medtronic inset. Are there any plans to simplify more brands, because I'm thinking of the one we use for Tandem? And you know, by the time you open it, you peel off the sticky stuff, you, you cock it, you get it ready? You know, sometimes you're already set for error, because if the paper writes up the needle, you know, there's all sorts of different things that can happen if people either press too hard or do it at a weird angle. I know you know this, I don’t have to spell it out for you. But are there plans to simplify other insets in the way that you just described? Since you've seen how successful it is?

 

Matthias Heschel  18:16

yeah, plans to incremental improvements on existing infusion sets, based on the learnings we have from the field, among others, what we touched upon removing the paper liner from the adhesive, we can certainly redesign this to make it easier for the patient. And that's, that's definitely on our agenda.

 

Stacey Simms  18:37

I have a bunch of questions that I got from my listeners, they were really interested that we were talking so let me go ahead and grab those. The first one here was really interesting to me. This listener wants to know about the faster acting Fiasp insulin, which seems to have a little bit of difficulty in some pumps, I was wondering if you were looking into that for different faster acting insulins that the manufacturers are coming out with and if you're testing those and working on ways to improve that in the insets

 

Matthias Heschel  19:06

Yeah, maybe keep a close eye on the market. And every time a new insulin is approved for pumps, therapy, we add this onto our list and do all the necessary trucks stability testing, device stability testing, so you can put this onto our indication for the infusion sets and then it's up to the to the pump manufacturer to also indicate the pump for the new insulin and then the patient can use it. So and that also applies to Fiasp. So we have done all the necessary homework and we know that at least a couple of the pump manufacturers are considering to broaden their pump indication to also include the Fiasp

 

Dr. Kerem Ozer  19:47

And to that I may also add that we're also going to be looking at Lyumjev ultra rapid lispro insulin from Lilly, which as you know is also approved just recently for pump use. So That will also go through the same processes that Matthias mentioned, whether it's working on biocompatibility, looking at what the system does to the insulin, and its excipients and what the insulin is excipients do to the pump. And so that's in the works as well.

 

Stacey Simms  20:15

I meant to ask earlier, I had heard about something I don't know if this is the in-house name or something that you're using and research called Lantern technology. Could you explain what that is what you all are working on?

 

Matthias Heschel  20:27

I was hoping you would ask this question. Lantern is a pretty simple feature tries to mitigate the occlusions we sometimes see for soft cannula infusion sets, when the soft cannula is bent or kinked. And the Lantern features are actually pretty simple. So we provide the soft cannula with additional slits close to the tip of the cannula, and in case the soft cannula experiences any physical impact is spent or even kinked then those slits would open up and would allow to the inset to continue to flow. So it's basically a measure to mitigate the risk that a cannula on the infusion set can get occluded in the cannula.

 

Stacey Simms  21:15

That sounds really interesting. It sounds like didn't BD medical a few years ago have something that sounded it sounded at least to my ear similar that it had the different slits in the cannula? And it never came out? Is this similar technology.

 

Matthias Heschel  21:29

It's you could see it as it's different as a similar technology. It's though, quite quite different. I mean, they provided an additional exit hole, just one hole close to the tip of the cannula. And that actually weakened the cannula significantly, and the product was out on the market. They call it a smart flow technology. And the product was marketed by Medtronic as a process that was withdrawn from the market right after. And with our long term technology, putting a number of slits, we have really avoiding this issue that the cannula really occludes. Imagine if you just have one side hole and the cannula kinks or bends, and you would close up this hole. And in our case, having four or six slits, that would be always a couple of slits open and allow the Insulet to flow. So it's a different technology.

 

Stacey Simms  22:25

Yeah sure. And I don't know how much you can share which brands might get that? In other words, are you working with Medtronic on this? Or you're working with Tandem on this as somebody else? You know, in the should we be watching for this in a more proprietary form? Or will it just going to go in all of your insets?

 

Matthias Heschel  22:40

Right now we're in the process of implementing technology in our mainstream products, which are the inset two products, which are available to all pump manufacturers, and then we need to see pump manufacturers will pick up on this.

 

Stacey Simms  22:56

Got it. Kerem, let me ask you if I could, do you have any best practices for your patients when it comes to using the insets and infusion sets? Are there mistakes that are very common that people make, I'd love to kind of hear, you know, what you what you tell your own or in the past what you've told your own patients?

 

Dr. Kerem Ozer  23:13

Absolutely. The key things, especially if someone is very new to living with diabetes, as you know, there's there's a lot of anxiety there. Everything is new, a lot of new information is coming in, you know, at our clinic, what I always tried to do, what we always tried to do was sort of taking a deep breath, letting people know that there's a lot of resources, there's a lot of support, you know, at the risk of sort of repeating the cliche, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon, and really providing the resources, sort of focusing that more on to the infusion set side, I think one key thing is starting, especially if someone's new to pump therapy, sitting down with them going over the whole process, we had demo kits, sometimes I would demonstrate sets on myself even just to make sure that everyone's feeling comfortable, especially for our younger patients, having the parents there and really taking the time to walk them through the process of what an ideal insertion looks like. And I think doing it in real life really helps in person in real time. As opposed to watching a video which where everything looks so perfect, right? So we definitely emphasize that prioritize that. And then when we start thinking about using the sets, a lot of those things using the alcohol pad and cleaning the area, a lot of things that are repeated, easy to say hard to do every single time. But I think emphasizing the fact that the closer and closer we get to that ideal that the longer we can keep the site's healthy, the longer we can keep the process healthy is important. And as more technology comes in as continuous glucose monitoring gets integrated. As the pumps get smarter, I think there's always the importance of that of that person factor. And making sure that we're really addressing everyone as an individual and sort of seeing where they are and going and holding their hand and walking with them to where they need to be or where they want to be, is key. And then there is as you know, a lot of variation from person to person. And there's a lot of variation from day to day. And being aware of that repeating that message. And sometimes you wake up and you have a perfect day. And sometimes you wake up and there's a lot of obstacles and changes and bringing that message that, yes, diabetes is there. Yes, it brings challenges. But if we see it as part of a larger system, and if we address it as well as we can, as if we can stick with those guidelines, and recommendations. And if we keep open lines of communication between the patient and the family and the clinic, things tend to fall into place. And I'm very proud to say your many, many patients, of course, live decades and decades of healthy lives with diabetes. And I think that the key component there is keeping those lines of communication open and keeping that sort of positive attitude going.

 

Stacey Simms  26:38

Alright, let's get back to some of the questions that my listeners had. And I thought this was a really interesting one, she asked me when insets are designed is any consideration given to those of us who deal with limited hand strength, or older adults with smaller hands, or even using color tubing to increase the visibility of air bubbles or maybe using color in the cannula. So it'd be easier to see if it was correctly inserted. I've got to believe that you look at this and you do research it but Matthias, can I ask you to just hop in an answer that one?

 

Matthias Heschel  27:07

Sure. Well, every time when we design a new product, we put a lot of effort into the initial conceptual work. And that means that you propose certain designs, which we then show to the target population. And if the target indication of the product is smaller children or elderly people, those will be included in the assessment of the concept. So we really trying to already in the concept phase to design the product in the way that we can make sure that it can be used by the by the target population. And at the same time, we are compliant with standards. For example, when we have a product that requires activation to push a button, what's the strength of a point of finger for a for a small girl? so we were really trying to incorporate this in our product design.

 

Stacey Simms  28:05

Another question came in there used to be an infusion set by a different company called an Orbit. I don't recall this, but this sounds great. It rotated so the tubing was less likely to get caught. Any plans to bring that back or something similar.

 

Matthias Heschel  28:18

Well Orbit is owned by another company Ypsomed in Switzerland, and to our knowledge, the product is still on the market. So we don't have any insights in the in the details. But it's not it's not one of our products.

 

Stacey Simms  28:35

Got it? It's probably something that's not available in the US yet because we don't have Ypsomed here yet. But it's it's supposed to be coming. Okay, I have a very might be a silly question, but I will ask it anyway, this is a silly question. I get it from listeners all the time. One of the first times I remember getting our box of inserters we had the old one I always describe it looks like a little spaceship. I mean, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about for it was the Animas way back when and now we use Tandem, it came with these little plastic pieces, and no one ever told me what they were for. And as it turns out, then we realize this after my son's inset got filled with sand at the beach, and we could not reconnect. It turns out these little pieces are supposed to go in and protect the site and keep sand out. But I've heard a lot of different versions of what they are really supposed to do and when you are supposed to wear them. So my question is, when you put an inset on the body, it was explained to me like it's almost as though you've got like a vial of insulin with a little rubber on top. You can pierce it, but you can't get into it. In other words, you don't have to cover it every single time you take a shower or go in a pool because nothing is seeping through until you reconnect the needle. Is that the proper use of those inserters

 

John Lindskog  29:50

Yeah, this is uh, John maybe just a quick comment. So that that is that is true that at the at the time development there were some spare caps. And the idea here was that when you disconnect the tubing from the side, it's true that you know it sealed, the side doesn't seal because there are septums that closes the fluid pathway. However, the idea about providing these small inserts was that you could protect kind of the surface of the septum. With that kind of cover so that you wouldn't have any kind of larger particles being able to, to come in the way like the listener just described getting sand in it. So it was actually, you know, kind of a protection. However, it was not something which was necessary, it was kind of, you know, choice you could make to add that in, though. So that the reason behind that

 

Stacey Simms  30:48

perfect, there just seems to be a little bit of a misunderstanding in some parts of the community, what people think it keeps bacteria from getting, in other words, if you swim in a lake or something like that, you should pop it in. But it really is just to keep out particles like sand.

 

John Lindskog  31:01

Yeah, it's only for larger particles. And, you know, the site is perfectly sealed as it is. So it's it's more to kind of say, Okay, I want to make sure that that, you know, I don't have to clean it up afterwards, and so on. So that was the rationale behind that.

 

Stacey Simms  31:18

I have one or two more questions, kind of to wrap it up. Have I missed anything in particular that you guys wanted to make sure to bring up before I start wrapping up?

 

John Lindskog  31:26

Actually, there was just one question that I think that at least I had, I would be curious to know about, you know, in each box of the insets, there is an instructions for use, how you deploy, the infusion set.  What's out and, you know, that is in some countries made in a number of different languages and so on. And I guess I'm just curious about is that being read all the time, or is that you know, being kept in the place or simply just, you know, put it into the trash can. But what's kind of, because I have a I have an assumption. We have an assumption, what happens to these but but I was just curious to know, if you could share that with us.

 

Stacey Simms  32:07

I'm so excited that you asked that question, John, I think you know the answer, I can't imagine anyone is really reading the instructions, we all should. In fact, I'm going to take those instructions out and look through them. But it's one of those situations where my book that comes with each box is so thick and intimidating. As I'm telling you this, I'm thinking this is why I don't do it, maybe it's just I'll have to take a look at how long the actual instructions are. Maybe it's in several languages. And that's why it's so thick, but we're so used to and maybe we can blame the iPhone for this. We're so used to opening something up and being able to use it immediately and hoping right that it's very intuitive, that maybe that's why we don't read the instructions. So there's a lot of user error. And frankly, I know there's a lot of user error within sets. I've seen it in my house, I've been the user making the error. So I'll ask my listeners, I mean, I'd be happy to take a quick poll in the Diabetes Connections Facebook group, but I do recall taking a pump class, and we were there for two hours, I came home a couple of days later, I had to change the inset on my two year old I had forgotten everything I had learned. And at the time, this was 2007. I found one video, I mean, think about the days of YouTube back in 2007. And it was in French to show me how to change the inset. But I did that rather than look for the instructions. So John, what a great question. And I will get you more feedback from the community on that.

 

John Lindskog  33:29

Okay, thanks. Thanks a lot. Thanks. I will say though, that, you know, it is a regulatory requirement that we put those in a box. And we would, you know, like to move it into some kind of, you know, YouTube media or something like that. However, the regulatory requirements are that they should always be there. So we want to see if we can move that in the regulatory requirements. So we can, you know, save some printed matter, and, you know, reduce the waste and make it easier to access.

 

Stacey Simms  34:02

It's a great point. That is a great point. Before I let you go, here in the United States and I assume in many parts of the world, there's a lot of concerns about supply right now. Any issues, any concerns anything people should be thinking about for the next couple of months?

 

John Lindskog  34:16

No, I you know, and we have had some issues on supplies in the beginning of the when COVID-19 was at the highest and we have been putting in extra capacity for making progress and investing large sums of money into getting you know, capacity brought up and we should be out of those weeds by the end of this year. And we don't really see any, any issues going forward. But you know, it may take some time to get that all through the supply chain, but I can assure you that we're doing everything which is now a power to always have the capacity to supply the what the demand is.

 

Stacey Simms  34:57

Let me as we wrap this up, Kerem, let me ask you this. You are new to the company, or you are the newest person here, so the company, what excites you and you know, you've worked with patients for a long time, you've seen how important this part of the device and system is, what excites you about this technology going forward?

 

Dr. Kerem Ozer  35:15

This is a great question. And this is the reason I'm, I'm here, I'm in the company, I think it really goes back to that point about realizing how important looking at patients insights, their experiences, where they are, what they need, and bring that feedback into the company to help develop new technologies. And I would say, a direct corollary to why I'm so excited about my role here is this is really sort of being a medical person, a physician, and endocrinologist and industry, you really play a bridge role. You're constantly talking with the engineers with the business side, and you're keeping your ear open to your patients, your community and your colleagues. And sort of you're part of that feedback loop, bringing back ideas, presenting your products and saying this will work. This is a great idea, and sort of keeping that momentum going. And I'm very excited about that.

 

Stacey Simms  36:20

Excellent Matthias you are in r&d, you are the head of r&d, you're in the I wouldn't say the trenches so much. But you're really seeing realistically what's happening on the company every day. Anything you want to add to that. I mean, is there anything that you're really excited about that you'd like to listeners to leave listeners with? Yeah,

 

Matthias Heschel  36:37

I mean, what, what I always tell the engineers is, you guys, you are directly responsible for how patients or people in the state beat is, how they feel how they are able to manage their daily life. If we do a great job, those people can lean back once in a while and perhaps even forget about the disease, if it will not do a perfect job. They have a terrible day. So that's, that's really what people understand. And that's why at least how I see it. I mean, those people in the medical device industry typically work longer work harder, because they understand they understand the responsibility they have.

 

Stacey Simms  37:17

Well, thank you so much all of you for spending so much time with me for answering our questions for posing your own questions, which doesn't happen that often. And I'm really glad that you did that. We will get you some answers. Thanks so much, gentlemen.

 

You're listening to Diabetes Connections with Stacey Simms.

Lots more information at diabetes connections.com at the episode homepage, and I'll link to some of the studies they talked about that longer were the stuff that's in the works. And let me tell you, I went and got the book. I have it right here. Can you hear that? I'm wiggling it, I went and got the book that comes with the insets. And it's right there. Of course, at the top with the little horseshoe thingies that they explained. I hope they cleared up some stuff for you. The book is long, because as I said, it's in many other languages other than English, the directions are maybe two or three pages long. I think it's really just two pages. There's some pictures here. But the English instructions are one to three pages long. And then that's it.

So Benny and I actually sat down and read them. And he does it slightly differently. But what he does works, I mean, we are 15 years into diabetes. So that means we were 14 and a half years into pumping. So he's got it down. But if you're having trouble, I may start a thread in the Facebook group. Because there's some really easy tips and techniques to make sure that you you put these insets on correctly in follow the directions. That's your best bet. But as you know, the community can help too. So we'll we'll put that in there. And of course, I'm going to put a poll up about the and we put I may have already done that by the time the episode airs, because a pull up about have you ever read the directions? I was a little embarrassed. You heard me laughing when he asked, but I'm glad he did.

Alright, I've got some news coming up about next year. Oh my gosh. But first Diabetes Connections is brought to you by Dexcom. And when we first started with Dexcom, it was back in 2013. It was about this time here, the share and follow apps were not an option. They just hadn't come out with the technology yet. So trust me when I say using share and follow make a big difference. I think it's important though to talk to the person you're following or sharing with and get comfortable with how you want everyone to use the system. Even if you're following your young child. These are great conversations to have, you know what numbers will make you text, write how long you're going to wait to call that sort of thing. That way the whole system gives everyone real peace of mind. I'll tell you what I absolutely love about Dexcom share and that is helping Benny with any issues using the data from the whole day night. And not just one moment. Internet connectivity is required to access separate Dexcom follow up to learn more, go to diabetes connections.com and click on the Dexcom logo.

A couple of weeks ago I told you I would have some book news and I do I am so excited to announce that the world's worst diabetes mom, part two is going to be out next year, I just signed on with my publisher. We talked this week, actually this morning, as I'm taping this episode, and we laid it all out, because my goodness, with some of the publishing issues, probably hopefully not the shipping issues by next year. But a lot of what's going out of the publishing industry, I have to have everything done earlier than I did last time to have the book Ready by a certain time of year I wanted out for as you can imagine, I wanted for November of next year, because Diabetes Awareness Month is my best bet to get any kind of, I guess, mainstream media attention on diabetes, media attention. And that worked really well. In 2019. When I put out the first book, the name of the book is not part two. I'm not sure what we're going to call it yet.

But I will be sharing that with you all, I'm going to be sharing more of the process this time around, just as I think it'll be fun. And I'm going to be sharing things like cover options and title options in the Facebook group Diabetes Connections, the group. So if you'd like to help me the community was a huge help last time around in terms of how to word things. Because you know, when you're a parent of a child with type one, there are some differences that you want to be respectful about. There's some differences and ways of wording things that that just for clarity, right? A good example is are you a T one D parent, to me, that means a parent who lives with type one, right? So you have to It's little things like that you just have to be careful about and you will help me so much with that the first time around. So I will be asking the second time around, I have an idea for a title, I kind of know what the direction is going to be. I know what the title is going to be. I know what the focus is going to be on. We're going to be addressing a lot of the things that I have been asked about since the first one came out. So really excited, a little bit nervous. But man, I loved writing the first one. So I hope this will be as much fun to put together.

All right, thank you so much to my editor John Buchenas from Audio Editing Solutions. We will be back on Wednesday. We are now live on Facebook and YouTube at 430. Eastern time. And then around 445 I'm live on Instagram. A little bit different for those of you who live on Instagram a lot like evolve. I mean, what a pain. Right? But it's fun. I like doing it. It's only a pain because I share photos. And I'm not that adept. Really. I mean, Instagram is not a friendly platform for sharing photos live and reading a script. Let me just tell you say if you've got advice on that, and you know how to do it, well, let me know. Or you could just listen to the audio podcast that comes out every Friday for in the news. Thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Simms. I'll see you back here soon Until then be kind to yourself.

 

Benny  42:35

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