Medtronic ‘Smartens’ up Diabetes Offerings with Insulin Pen Launch

Medtronic is launching its smart insulin pen for people who need multiple daily injections. The Dublin-based company said the InPen is integrated with the real-time Guardian Connect Continuous Glucose Management (CGM) data.

The firm said the integrated system now provides real-time glucose readings alongside insulin dose information giving users everything they need to manage their diabetes in one view. Rather than switching between apps, users have the ability to see all their information in real-time, in one view — making it easier to make smarter dosing decisions to manage their sugar levels.

In its most recent earnings call, Medtronic’s CEO Geoff Martha discussed the potential impact of the InPen technology.

“[The] Smartpen technology expands our ecosystem to include the multi-daily injection portion of the diabetes market, with a patient population that is nearly 12 times larger than that that use insulin pumps,” Martha said according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the earnings call.

Medtronic gained access to the device when it acquired Companion Diagnostics a few months ago. In addition to giving the medtech giant a new diabetes-focused device Companion Medical builds upon prior Medtronic strategic acquisitions, including Nutrino and Klue, that form the building blocks to design powerful algorithms leveraging the company’s deep data science and AI capabilities.

The InPin device also builds up Medtronic’s diabetes offerings, which haven’t been performing to the company’s liking. 

“In diabetes, look, we're missing out on the better growth of this market, and nobody at Medtronic is comfortable with this dynamic,” Martha said according to a Seeking Alpha transcript of the call. “And we're pushing on several fronts to advance our technology. We're actively increasing both our near and our long-term growth opportunities, through increased organic investment, innovative funding with our recently announced Blackstone partnership, and inorganic activity, highlighted by the announcement earlier this month of our pending acquisition of Companion Medical.”