The artificial pancreas developed by Inreda Diabetic was nominated together with twelve other innovations for the Herman Wijffels Audience Award 2013. During the past weeks the audience could vote for the innovation with the highest societal impact. Inreda Diabetic won the public award with a large lead on its competitors. Because of Inreda Diabetic’s artificial pancreas diabetes patients are expected to feel better as it fully regulates the glucose level. The award of € 5.000 is sponsored by Teckle, the innovative service of the Rabobank.
The artificial pancreas was developed in 2004 by Robin Koops, himself a diabetes type 1 patient, together with two friends: Joost Bonhof and Rob Koebrugge. Based on this invention Robin Koops and Wim Smit started the company Inreda Diabetic. The artificial pancreas automatically inserts insulin and glucagon while the glucose level is continuously monitored. Because of this development injecting multiple times a day, counting carbohydrates and injecting insulin become things of the past for diabetes type 1 patients. Although the main principle of the invention remains the same a major breakthrough has been accomplished regarding the size of the device. Over time it has been downgraded from a filing cabinet in 2004 to a microwave in 2008 and a laptop in 2011. With the development of the current prototype, which has the size of a modern smartphone, Inreda Diabetic succeeded in decreasing the size of the device and integrating it in such a fashion that it is available for the patient on short notice. In 2014 the artificial pancreas will obtain a CE marking. This means that the device will be accepted for the European market. Subsequently, the medical device can enter the market in 2015.
Figure 1. From left to right: the prototype 1 (2004), prototype 2 (2008), prototype 3 (2011), enprototype 4 (2013)
In order to make the artificial pancreas accessible for all people with type 1 diabetes Inreda Diabetic collaborates with multiple organizations. In 2008 the AMC Amsterdam got involved with innovation trajectory to show a proper functioning of the device in clinical studies. The first official clinical studies have been performed by Arianne van Bon who was a PhD student at that time and currently works at Rijnstate. After positive results had been reached, in 2012 the AMC and Inreda Diabetic started a European project named PCDIAB together with five other organizations: Medical University Graz, Novo Nordisk, Profil, Full Group and Twente University. Within this project Inreda Diabetic is responsible for the technological development of the device, while the AMC Amsterdam prepares and performs the clinical studies. From the University of Twente (Institute IGS) Ariane van Raesfeld, based at the Netherlands Institute for Knowledge Intensive Entrepreneurship (NIKOS), is responsible for the dissemination of the artificial pancreas, the development of the device from a business point of view and to support the innovation network. Besides the European project Inreda Diabetic collaborates with TNO for the development of more adequate sensors and with the Diabetes Fonds to make the artificial pancreas accessible for type 1 diabetes patients in the Netherlands. By combining the own strength with the expertise of others Inreda Diabetic aims at bringing the device to patients in the short-term.
