It’s a common difficulty in many medical specialties: there typically aren’t enough specialists to go around. DreaMed Diabetes hopes to relieve some of the strain with its artificial-intelligence-powered system aimed not at patients but at clinicians.
The company secured a new green light from the FDA for its Advisor Pro digital platform, expanding its reach to patients with Type 2 diabetes. Described as a digital endocrinologist platform, the clinical decision support system was previously cleared for use in Type 1 diabetes.
The program is designed to help healthcare providers treat patients who are using insulin pumps or taking frequent injections—as well as those tracking their blood sugar with meters or continuous glucose monitors—by providing tools that allow primary care physicians to provide efficient diabetes care.
”There are simply not enough endocrinologists to provide the expert-level care that all people with diabetes require continuously,” said DreaMed founder and CEO Eran Atlas, who estimated that there are over 41,000 adults for every practicing endocrinologist in the U.S., resulting in a large number of people whose diabetes is poorly managed—with Type 2 diabetes representing a much broader population compared to Type 1.
“We can potentially help avoid thousands of unnecessary hospitalizations and medical complications for the community of people with diabetes and change the overall standards of care in this sector,” Atlas said. “The FDA clearance puts us on a path to help millions of people with diabetes, and our next step is to develop and extend our solution to cover all injectable or oral medications for diabetes.”
DreaMed previously scored a de novo clearance from the FDA and a CE mark in Europe in 2018 for its decision support software in Type 1 diabetes.
The software analyzes patients’ data from glucose monitors and pumps, as well as self-reported blood sugar levels and food consumption, to generate individual recommendations and insulin pump settings for basal rates, carbohydrate ratios and correction factors.
The program has also been incorporated into Glooko’s digital diabetes platform, and DreaMed’s artificial pancreas technology has been licensed to Medtronic for use in its hybrid closed-loop MiniMed 780G pump for people with Type 1 diabetes.