Concept of automated insulin delivery (AID) systems
An automated insulin delivery system, also called artificial pancreas or closed loop system, consists of a continuous glucose monitor and an algorithm determining the amount of insulin to be delivered by an insulin pump. While this concept can be dated back to mid last century, research took off with the arrival of continuous glucose monitors on the market in 1999. Nowadays many patients use a so-called hybrid closed loop system, which automatically regulates glucose overnight and in between meals.
However, before each meal patients still have to manually enter the amount of carbohydrates they intend to consume into the system, and they have to adjust the glucose target of the system upwards in case of exercise. Fully closed loop systems aim to relieve patients also from these last tasks, so that they only have to maintain the system. This could be accomplished by automated meal and exercise detection, accelerating insulin action, use other hormones in addition to insulin (glucagon, amylin) or adjunctive therapies (SGLT2 inhibitors, etc).
Artificial pancreas research at Profil
Profil was coordinator of the EU FP7 funded project AP@home and participated in PCDIAB, another EU FP7 funded project. AP@home was instrumental in the development of two now commercialized hybrid closed loop systems. In PCDIAB, Profil established a dose-response curve for lower dosages of glucagon for use in a bihormonal artificial pancreas.
Thus, Profil is the ideal partner for any in house clinical study with artificial pancreas systems, for example involving meal- and exercise tests in a safe and controlled environment.
