Luna. A website (https://www.lunadiabetes.com) offering “Insulin pens + Automation: They said it couldn’t be done”.
A bit about Luna
Founded by John Sjolund, of Timesulin fame, later acquired by Bigfoot, Sean Saint, formerly of Companion (creator of the In-Pen) and long standing in the diabetes tech world, and Jon Brilliant (also ex-Bigfoot), the track record of the team gives good reason to believe they know what they are doing.
But what of Luna? As I mentioned earlier, the website doesn’t really tell you much, other than Luna intends to provide a way for MDI users to maintain in range glucose throughout the night with minimal human involvement. As they say, “Sleep. Finally. For the masses.”.
They call it “Automated Injections”, and the white paper is about as revealing as the website. It focuses on the effects of poor sleep, looking at both life and diabetes, before teasing you with an idea, and not a lot else, plus an image.
Some speculation on what Luna might be…
The above image is designed to tell us absolutely nothing. Other than the device appears to be rechargeable.
What we’ve also been told is that this allows MDI users to choose when they want to use it.
We also have the pedigree of the founders to consider. Two people from the connected pen world and we can’t forget the Bigfoot background.
Given what we know here, it doesn’t seem like to big a piece of conjecture to suggest the following, and remember, this is all speculation:
- Some sort of connected patch pump
- Software that uses “connected pen” technology to understamd basal and bolus insulin delivered and derive IOB curves for pre-dosed insulin
- CGM integration to observe whether a user is in-range
- An automated insulin delivery algorithm that uses all of the above to add insulin when glucose levels are getting too high, and potentially, if used in place of overnight basal, suspend insulin when falling levels occur
- Maybe a single day use cannula that is inserted only when wanted
Now, the above list is what I’d expect a system that purports to provide “Automated Injections” overnight would need, as anything that used the pens themselves or was a manual pump, would require manual intervention.
Will it get to market?
I’m not even going to speculate on that. The founders are people that have brought products to market successfully in the past. The idea makes sense, and the white paper and website claim the the market research is very positive, so it seems there’s a potential market. There also don’t seem to be any patents directly for Luna (if someone can find them I’d be willing to learn more), although amongst those submitted by the founders whilst at Bigfoot are some interesting ideas that may direct a reader to a Luna type of solution.
As with all new products though, and especially ones that would require FDA approval, if it is some form of overnight pump, we’re unlikely to see anything commercial for a few years.
So let’s hope it’s a cheap, CGM integrated, AID based patch pump that allows greater freedom for MDI users. That doesn’t seem like such a bad idea!
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