It is an illness that will affect around one in three Americans in their lifetime and costs the US economy around USD250 billion a year in medical bills and lost productivity. And it is not just a US problem.
By 2035, more than 600 million people worldwide will have developed the life-threatening disease, the equivalent of one new case every three seconds. That is more than four times the number recorded in 1980, according to the World Health Organisation.
Type 2 diabetes is clearly on a relentless march – spreading worldwide as people live longer and eat ever greater quantities of richer, unhealthier food.
As with many serious conditions though, diabetes’ progress could be checked relatively easily. Early detection and prompt treatment can help sufferers avoid many of its life-threatening complications, which can include heart attack, stroke, and kidney failure.
The problem, however, is that screening for diabetes and associated cardiovascular conditions is a complex process – one that has traditionally been carried out by specialist clinics.
Yet all that could be about to change. One cause for optimism comes in the shape of a small wirelessly connected device – known as Trace – that can be used at home to carry out complex tests, enabling patients to monitor their own health and manage their diseases actively.
If problems are identified, potential sufferers can consult a doctor before their symptoms become more serious – improving the quality of their lives and potentially saving large amounts of money in treatment costs. According to the International Diabetes Foundation, 12 per cent of global health budgets are spent on treating diabetes.
Trace, developed by the private Danish firm Atonomics, is a functional and simple device – small enough to sit on a side-table or bedside cabinet. Users take a small drop of blood from a finger stick, and within a few minutes can measure the level of the biomarkers in their bloodstream which indicate the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases.
“This device is not a gadget like some wearables,” says Thomas Warthoe, Atonomics’ founder and chief executive.
“It produces real, clinically relevant data about your health from tests which are as good as those done by hospital equipment. Users can therefore check their health quickly and simply, and whenever required.”
Copenhagen-based Atonomics was founded in 2000, a time when diagnostic analysis was the preserve of centralised laboratories. So its first product, developed with a US company, was equipment for diagnosing cardiovascular diseases closer to patients, in clinics, pharmacies and physicians’ offices.
This device is not a gadget like some wearables.
But Warthoe’s vision is to put diagnostic tools in the hands of ordinary people and his Trace device does just that.
The data it generates is processed by a smartphone app which allows users to monitor their health, send the results to their doctor or file them online to their medical records. “We have invented ways to analyse blood samples that, for example, can separate out the plasma without spinning it in hospital centrifuges. We have solved a lot of such technical issues, miniaturised the equipment and simplified the processes so that the device can be used at home,” Warthoe explains.
Carrying out tests at home rather than at the clinic can result in considerable savings.
“In Denmark alone, eliminating the four routine laboratory diabetes tests could save more than EUR500 million a year, and billions more in treatment costs if the disease can be controlled better,” he says.
The device will be launched in Denmark in 2017, followed by a rollout to other European countries. It is on course to receive regulatory approval in the US in 2018, and should be on shelves across Asia soon after.
Warthoe expects the first users will be reasonably fit people who already have gadgets that measure heart rate, blood pressure and the like. But he hopes that the device will also be attractive to healthcare providers, who hopefully will encourage their growing numbers of chronically-sick patients to use it so that illnesses can be detected and tackled early.
“We are seeing a new paradigm emerge,” he says. “Our vision is that healthcare should not be about how sick people are, but how healthy they are. This has already started with gadgets, but now Trace can give people access to data about their health before serious problems develop.”
