Drug stores to play bigger diabetes role
CVS Health senior educator Kristene Diggins and others involved in the fight against diabetes said they expect drug stores and retail clinics to play a bigger role in coming years.
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“Our retail partners are committed to early intervention and making community pharmacies the focal point for care,” Trividia Health president and chief executive Scott Verner said last month after his company acquired Freedom Meditech and announced its plans to begin offering that company’s noninvasive six-second eye scan, a test that can screen for diabetes and other chronic conditions by detecting the presence of advanced glycation products, or AGEs, in the lens of the eye.
“As the number of in-store clinics continues to grow and the number of screenings continues to expand, this technology will fill the void,” he said.
Also lending hope to the quest to help more patients get their diabetes under control is the recent development of monitors that do not require diabetes patients to draw blood for testing.
The first such device — a wristwatch that used an electric current to pull small amounts of fluid through the skin without having to prick it — was approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than a decade ago, but was taken off the market soon after its launch because more than half of the patients who used the watch experienced skin irritation and sores.
Noninvasive glucose monitoring returned to the market late last year when the FDA gave its approval to Dexcom’s G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System, the first agency-approved continuous glucose monitoring system that can be used to make diabetes treatment decisions without confirmation via a traditional fingerstick test. Previously, the system was approved to complement, not replace, fingerstick testing.
“This may allow some patients to manage their disease more comfortably and may encourage them to have routine dialogue with their healthcare providers about the use of real-time continuous glucose monitoring in diabetes management,” Dr. Alberto Gutierrez, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said when the agency approved the system.
To read about four of the hottest diabetes products out now, check out the slideshow above.
Want more OTC news? To read February's Cough-Cold Report, click here.
(To view the full Category Review, click here.)
“Our retail partners are committed to early intervention and making community pharmacies the focal point for care,” Trividia Health president and chief executive Scott Verner said last month after his company acquired Freedom Meditech and announced its plans to begin offering that company’s noninvasive six-second eye scan, a test that can screen for diabetes and other chronic conditions by detecting the presence of advanced glycation products, or AGEs, in the lens of the eye.
“As the number of in-store clinics continues to grow and the number of screenings continues to expand, this technology will fill the void,” he said.
Also lending hope to the quest to help more patients get their diabetes under control is the recent development of monitors that do not require diabetes patients to draw blood for testing.
The first such device — a wristwatch that used an electric current to pull small amounts of fluid through the skin without having to prick it — was approved by the Food and Drug Administration more than a decade ago, but was taken off the market soon after its launch because more than half of the patients who used the watch experienced skin irritation and sores.
Noninvasive glucose monitoring returned to the market late last year when the FDA gave its approval to Dexcom’s G5 Mobile Continuous Glucose Monitoring System, the first agency-approved continuous glucose monitoring system that can be used to make diabetes treatment decisions without confirmation via a traditional fingerstick test. Previously, the system was approved to complement, not replace, fingerstick testing.
“This may allow some patients to manage their disease more comfortably and may encourage them to have routine dialogue with their healthcare providers about the use of real-time continuous glucose monitoring in diabetes management,” Dr. Alberto Gutierrez, director of the Office of In Vitro Diagnostics and Radiological Health in the FDA’s Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said when the agency approved the system.
To read about four of the hottest diabetes products out now, check out the slideshow above.
Want more OTC news? To read February's Cough-Cold Report, click here.