The FDA has approved Dexcom Share, a remote control system for the Dexcom G4 Platinum CGM.
The product allows CGM data to be sent to Apple devices.The Share device costs $ 299, and is available for purchase on the Dexcom website.It does not require a medical recipe.
Here is how it works:
The G4 Platinum receiver plugs into the base of Dexcom Share.
The Share crib (plugged into a power outlet) allows the receiver to be loaded and transmits the CGM data every five minutes to an iPhone or iPod Touch through Bluetooth.
The Dexcom Share app receives the CGM data and sends them to a safe Internet server.Once there, the data can be shared with Apple devices (up to five devices).
Patients are able to invite people to receive their CGM data by sending an invitation from the Dexcom Share app on their iPhone or iPod Touch (Android is under development).Guests can download a free application called 'Dexcom follow'.These followers are able to receive alerts and notifications for high and low glucose levels, as well as to see CGM values and demand trends.
This is especially suitable news for parents and couples, who are often as interested in glucose numbers as patients themselves.
Notifications are completely programmable - for example, a guest could choose not to be notified of a 200 mg / dl hyperglycemia after breakfast, but receive all hypoglycemia notifications.
The system can offer the greatest benefits at night, because it allows parents and couples, to know glucose levels every five minutes from another room, another state or in another country!
Perhaps the most important thing, Dexcom Share prepares the path for the Dexcom Gen 5 mobile system, which will send CGM data directly from a new transmitter in the body to a mobile application - without requested receiver.
Gen 5 will use much of the same back-end software architecture as sharing, that is, the FDA review will be much softer.Share's FDA review took more than 15 months.Dexcom has planned to present GEN 5 to the FDA at the end of 2014 or early 2015.
Before Share's approval, some patients at the NightScout / CGM in the cloud group have built DO-ID-YoursElf software / hardware to take dexcom CGM data and send it the cloud and smartphones in real time-see review ofKerri Sparling here.
Nightscout and Share have some fundamental differences - installation level, expenses, approval of the FDA, etc.- But we believe that these differences are much less important that launches the global fee message leads to the Diabetes community: a new solution to help patients and caregivers monitor their glucose levels with more peace of mind.
