Abbott recently received European CE Mark approval for its continuous glucose monitoring system whose biosensor was pioneered by a chemical engineering professor at The University of Texas at Austin.
The FreeStyle Navigator™ Continuous Glucose Monitoring System was developed by Abbott’s Diabetes Care division to help people with diabetes obtain to obtain minute-by-minute glucose readings and thereby avoid excessively high and low glucose levels. Staying within optimal glucose concentrations reduces short-term risks and long-term complications of the disease.
Millions of people with diabetes check their glucose levels several times each day, managing diabetes often also involves insulin injections and counting carbohydrates. Low glucose levels can result in a blackout, coma, or even death, and high glucose levels can lead to blindness and other long-term complications.
Abbott’s FreeStyle Navigator System provides continuous and accurate glucose information with minimal inconvenience, providing a glucose reading as often as once per minute, and indicates whether a person’s glucose level is rising or falling. The system also has alarms that can warn a person up to 30 minutes in advance of the potential for either high or low glucose.
Dr. Adam Heller’ laboratory used their pioneering research on electrical connection of reaction centers of enzymes to electrical circuits to develop the system’s under-the-skin research prototype sensor in the 1990s. The prototype sensor, similar to the one used in the FreeStyle Navigator system, monitored the concentration of glucose below the skin’s surface by enabling glucose to undergo an electrochemical reaction. The glucose concentration is determined by measuring the current produced in this reaction.
“I came to The University of Texas at Austin to create technology that helps people, particularly sick people,” said Research Professor Adam Heller. “We built the research prototype of the glucose monitoring electrically connected enzyme sensor at the university and tested it in animals and in volunteers, including me and my son Ephraim.”
He noted that Abbott Diabetes Care and the previous developer of the technology, TheraSense, adapted his principle of electrically connecting enzymes to circuits to create the glucose monitoring system. TheraSense was founded and initially managed by the Hellers, and was bought by Abbott in April 2004.
The FreeStyle Navigator sensor is designed to be worn for five days after it is inserted just under the skin of the arm or abdomen. The sensor is connected to a transmitter, worn like a patch on the skin which transmits glucose information wirelessly to a pager-sized receiver. The receiver also contains a built-in Freestyle blood glucose meter which can be used to calibrate the system during the initial warm-up period.
