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Innovative, integrated technologies and a proven algorithm support better therapy outcomes

Personalized Diabetes Management 2.0 – Interactively connected for an optimized therapy

Vienna (September 15, 2014) – Today, healthcare systems around the globe face significant challenges that are creating concerns about the sustainability of the services and care provided and covered by the national health plans. In this context in particular the combination of increased prevalence of diabetes and an ageing population is exacerbating the burden on healthcare delivery and costs worldwide. To meet the increasing demand, governments and payers together with industry partners and healthcare professionals are looking at ways to make healthcare systems more sustainable and improve their citizens’ health via mobile health (mHealth) solutions. Experts reckon mobile healthcare as the biggest technology break-through of our time to address national challenges. Notably in daily management of diabetes such technological solutions seem to be a natural fit as mHealth delivers the virtual connection between different devices but also of people with diabetes and their caregivers.

People with diabetes are used to managing their condition on their own most of the time. Receiving the usual care, they would see their specialist only up to 5 hours per year. The other time of the year people with diabetes are urged to self-responsibly manage their condition. Moreover, research demonstrates that they often feel overwhelmed by the daily challenges posed on them by the disease. Especially when it comes to insulin therapy, the important blood glucose measurements are often omitted and the subsequent calculation and delivery of insulin or a snack is skipped. This often leaves an incomplete picture to the doctor, making data access, analysis and therapy adjustments time consuming and difficult. Other important issues that need to be addressed in this context are the complexity of manually calculating an insulin bolus and the time needed for this procedure during every day routines.

International experts reckon that the better the patients’ understanding of their metabolism is and the more they have the opportunity to expand the dialogue beyond blood glucose values covering also personal lifestyle aspects and issues that are important to them– the more motivated they will be to proactively manage their condition. One way to serve the needs of people with diabetes and their physicians alike is opened up by the current trend of mHealth. This concept offers the virtual connection between healthcare professionals and patients and furthermore eases the important data collection, documentation and analysis by seamlessly integrating the important therapy monitoring into everyday routines. According to the European Commission, experts reckon the time saving potential for caregivers alone to be 30% when using mHealth solutions which they could use for a more in depth dialogue with their patients instead of unsuccessfully trying to access the important information. “Unlike many other forms of doctor-patient-interaction, mHealth will most likely have a greater effect on how care is and will be delivered to people with diabetes”, states Lars Kalfhaus, Head of Roche Diabetes Care Spain. “This is due to the following two reasons: mobile devices are ubiquitous and individual and mobility by itself implies that the users are part of a network, which radically increases the volume, variety and frequency of information exchange.”

Already today, patient treatment and remote monitoring solutions constitute almost 60% of the total mobile health deployments in Europe. Looking at diabetes in particular, Roche Diabetes Care offers two innovative mHealth solutions to optimally support daily diabetes therapy – be it the individual patient or the management of large patient groups. The new Accu-Chek® Connect system which is introduced in Europe in the coming months is a comprehensive solution encompassing the Accu-Chek Aviva Connect blood glucose monitoring system, the Accu-Chek Connect mobile app and a web-based portal accessible for people with diabetes and healthcare professionals to enable highly efficient communication and informed therapy decisions.  

The second solution is the emminens eConecta® platform, that helps patients and caregivers in sharing important therapy data as e.g. daily blood glucose profiles with the healthcare professional and obtain remote advice via the platform. Furthermore the modules of this system enable hospitals and diabetes centers to optimally handle their patient contracts and huge amounts of therapy-related data and most importantly to guide them step-by-step through a structured therapy management process and feedback loop: the 6-step Personalized Diabetes Management cycle.

But besides the virtual connection between the physician and the person with diabetes, there is a lot more, innovative technology can do in daily diabetes management as Prof. Thomas Danne, Diabetes Center for Children and Adolescents „Auf der Bult“, Hanover, Germany pointed out during his lecture. “When it comes to children and adolescents with diabetes, there are a lot of very specific therapy needs that have to be met.” Such needs are e.g. very small insulin dosing options in babies and toddlers as these need extremely small basal rates and also basal rate increments, but also the easy change of insulin cartridges or an automated bolus advice functionality are needs expressed by the young patients he stated.

“We need medical devices that are able to meet these needs such as a very intuitive use as the numbers of e.g. children with diabetes under the age of 5 will most likely double until the year 2020 which poses an additional challenge on caregivers.” With modern insulin pumps like the new Accu-Chek Insight diabetes therapy system Prof. Danne sees innovative technology and design on a very promising way to further simplify insulin pump therapy and to enhance access to this proven and trusted therapy type.

Of equal value to children, adolescents and adult people with diabetes is the Accu-Chek Bolus Advisor. Latest study evidence as presented by Dr. Signe Schmidt, Endocrinologist at the Hvidovre University Hospital, Hvidovre, Denmark, demonstrates that such features can bring a substantial additional value to diabetes therapy in terms of contribution to a reduced HbA1c level, improved overall glycemic control with reduced excursions and less fear of hypoglycemic events. “My observation of patients using the Accu-Chek Bolus Advisor is that they perceive the use of the system as a huge help and find the meter useful and user-friendly”, says Dr. Schmidt. “We also saw a tendency that patients not only trusted the bolus recommendations calculated by the meter’s algorithm but also learned from them and improved their skills.” So the tool to her is also providing valuable educational support increasing patients competency in carbohydrate counting and bolus calculation.

These experiences are also supported by very recent study findings: The Bolus Advisor Benefit Evaluation (BABE) study, a single-center, retrospective cohort study, assessed the impact of frequent use of the Accu‑Chek Bolus Advisor feature on glycemic control among pediatric type 1 diabetes patients on insulin pumps. The main results demonstrated that not only significantly more patients utilized the Accu-Chek Bolus Advisor for more than 50% of all bolus dosages calculated. The frequent use of a bolus advisor was also associated with better glycemic control and no increase in hypoglycemia as well as with more frequent adjustments in insulin therapy during the 6-month study period, which likely contributed to the resulting glycemic benefits.

“Such positive customer feedback and promising study evidence is why we at Roche Diabetes Care are confident to be able to make a true difference and see diabetes management and mHealth as a perfect fit,” states Luc Vierstraete, Global Head of Roche Diabetes Care, and concludes: “With our strategic and holistic approach of Personalized Diabetes Management and by providing innovative and integrated technologies, platforms  and solutions to people with diabetes and their caregivers, we are able to facilitate an optimal and efficient therapy, meeting our customers’ needs, tap the potential to support to a more efficient use of national healthcare budgets and enable improved medical outcomes.”

Sources

• Barnes et al., Diabetes Educ., 2004;  Chen et al., Archives of Internal Medicine, 2009 I PWC global mHealth survey 2012, pwc.com/global-health I http://apps.wirelessintelligence.com/health/tracker/ I Ziegler  et al., Does frequent use of an automated bolus advisor improve glycemic control in pediatric patients treated with insulin pump therapy? First results of the Bolus Advisor Benefit Evaluation (BABE) study, Poster presentation  1014-EASD (09-2014), 50th EASD annual meeting, September15 – 19,2014 Vienna

About Personalized Diabetes Management

Today’s diabetes management is seeing a growing degree of personalization, with a strong focus on patient’s individual glycemic profiles and an increased awareness for the importance of glycemic variability in the prevention of late complications such as cardiovascular diseases. This is why Roche Diabetes Care is researching new ways for a more effective application of self-monitoring of blood glucose and insulin administration.  Furthermore the company develops integrated therapy management concepts that provide efficient capabilities for the analysis of individual glycemic patterns while evidently supporting an effective and informed decision making. Moreover this complies with the conviction that an improved integration of therapy aspects relevant for the patient leads to an increase of motivation and therapy adherence and thus therapy outcomes. Roche Diabetes Care is working dedicatedly to enable successful and medically effective diabetes management by leveraging the concept of personalized diabetes management and providing all components needed for its implementation.

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, immunology, infectious diseases, ophthalmology and neuroscience. Roche is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. Roche’s personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. Founded in 1896, Roche has been making important contributions to global health for more than a century. Twenty-four medicines developed by Roche are included in the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines, among them life-saving antibiotics, antimalarials and chemotherapy.

In 2013 the Roche Group employed over 85,000 people worldwide, invested 8.7 billion Swiss francs in R&D and posted sales of 46.8 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan.

• For more information, please visit www.roche.com

About Roche Diabetes Care

Roche Diabetes Care is a pioneer in the development of blood glucose monitoring systems and a global leader for diabetes management systems and services. For more than 35 years, the Accu-Chek brand has been dedicated to enable people with diabetes to live life as normal and active as possible as well as to empower healthcare professionals manage their patients’ condition in an optimal way. Today, the Accu-Chek portfolio offers people with diabetes and healthcare professionals innovative products and impactful solutions for convenient, efficient and effective diabetes management. It encompasses blood glucose meters, insulin delivery systems, lancing devices, data management systems and education programs – contributing to an improved medical outcome.

• For more information: www.accu-chek.com

Roche Diabetes Care, 15.09.2014 (tB).