Helmsley Charitable Trust Awards $3.4 Million To Dreamed Diabetes For Type 1 Diabetes Decision Support
NEW YORK, N.Y., Feb. 3, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Type 1 Diabetes Program of The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust today announced a $3.4 million grant for DreaMed Diabetes (DreaMed). The funding will support DreaMed's MD-Logic Pump Advisor, an algorithm that mimics expert clinicians' analysis of type 1 diabetes (T1D) data to make insulin dosing recommendations for patients. This type of decision support has the potential to ease the burden of the disease and improve glucose control, quality of life and health outcomes for people living with T1D.
Over the past decade, advances in medical device technologies have made a significant impact on the monitoring, management and treatment of T1D. However, data from the T1D Exchange demonstrate that, due to the complexity of the disease, the majority of people living with T1D are not achieving optimal health outcomes and many report feeling overwhelmed by data on their insulin dosing, blood glucose values, exercise and meals. Currently, there is no system on the market that can combine and analyze data generated from different diabetes devices to identify trends and make insulin dosing recommendations.
The Trust's funding to DreaMed will enable them to partner with Glooko, a leader in mobile and web applications for diabetes management. They will carry out an international clinical study, conducted by the nextDREAM consortium and led by Professor Moshe Phillip of Schneider Children's Medical Center of Israel, to generate preliminary data on the safety, reliability and efficacy of the DreaMed Advisor algorithm for type 1 diabetes patients treated with insulin pumps. DreaMed will apply its algorithm to Glooko's FDA-cleared, HIPAA-compliant web platform – which seamlessly aggregates data from insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitors, blood glucose meters, fitness apps and devices, biometric devices and a built-in food and medication database – to identify trends and make insulin dosing recommendations.
This project is well-positioned to revolutionize the way T1D data is used for insulin pump patients by:
• Offering a safe, effective self-management tool to optimize insulin pump settings during and between clinic visits;
• Providing education and key success criteria for physicians and patients to individualize and improve T1D management; and
• Offering a population management tool that will bring patients to the attention of healthcare providers when they are in need of optimizing their pump.
As technology advances and smart insulin pens become available in the future, this decision support innovation could become increasingly accessible and have a more significant impact for a wider population of people living with T1D.
"DreaMed has the potential to play a profound role in improving therapies and the overall daily management of a relentless disease," said David Panzirer, Trustee of the Helmsley Charitable Trust. "We are excited to support this innovative work which presents a tremendous opportunity to aggregate data and transform it into actionable, easy-to-understand information for people managing type 1 diabetes every day."
DreaMed CEO Eran Atlas said, "We are very gratified that the Helmsley Charitable Trust put their vote of confidence in our DreaMed Advisor program and in our partnership with Glooko. With Advisor, healthcare providers will be able to use an easy and clinically effective decision support tool that will increase the time to interact with their patient and make regular patient visits to the doctor more efficient. For diabetes patients, it will ultimately mean 24/7 access to personalized medical advice, a kind of 'expert diabetes physician in your pocket,' that will bring T1D patients greater balance and an improved quality of life."
"We are in an age where health data captured through medical, wearable and biometric devices, made available in the cloud to both patients and health care teams, can drive dramatic change in the delivery of proactive and overall better care," said Rick Altinger, Glooko CEO. He continued, "Through our partnership with DreaMed, we are excited to leverage our mobile and web platform, combined with DreaMed's innovative algorithms, to deliver personalized data-driven decision support aimed at making diabetes management easier and more effective."
The grant to DreaMed was awarded as a result of the Helmsley Charitable Trust's Diabetes Data Innovation Initiative launched in June 2015 to identify innovative solutions that enable the use of data to ease the burden of T1D. The initiative generated over 70 letters of intent from 14 countries with a wide range of pioneering digital health solutions that could enable the integration of diabetes data to identify trends, and develop personalized patient guidance and decision support for providers.
ABOUT DREAMED DIABETES
DreaMed Diabetes, established in 2014, is dedicated to empowering insulin-dependent patients and their doctors with innovative and patient-centric decision support technology. The multidisciplinary DreaMed Diabetes team includes thought-leading endocrinologists, biomedical engineers and software developers with more than 50 years of combined field experience. With its innovative multidisciplinary approach, DreaMed Diabetes developed the MD-Logic Technology – sophisticated algorithms which analyzes available real-world data on dosing and glucose levels, in addition to patient reporting, emulating the way expert endocrinologists actually evaluate their patients. DreaMed became the first company in the world to receive CE Mark approval for Glucositter – its artificial pancreas technology, as well as the first to conduct artificial pancreas studies under real-world conditions. DreaMed is bringing optimal glycemic control to patients with diabetes everywhere, with personalized medicine that improves their quality of life and lowers their overall treatment costs. Learn more at www.dreamed-diabetes.com and follow us at Twitter.com/DreaMedDiabetes.
ABOUT THE HELMSLEY CHARITABLE TRUST
The Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust aspires to improve lives by supporting exceptional nonprofits and other mission-aligned organizations in health, selected place-based initiatives, and education and human services. Since 2008, when the Trust began its active grantmaking, it has committed more than $1.5 billion for a wide range of charitable purposes. The Helmsley Type 1 Diabetes Program is one of the largest private foundation funders of T1D in the United States focused on understanding the disease, developing better treatments and improving care and access. For more information, visit www.helmsleytrust.org.
CONTACT: Laura Fahey, 212-953-2814, lfahey@helmsleytrust.org