Medtronic Insulin Pump Shows Progress

CHICAGO—A Medtronic Inc. (MDT) insulin pump designed to temporarily shut off was able to reduce the incidence of a potentially fatal condition that occurs when blood-sugar levels fall too low—a key advance in the effort to fully automate the delivery of insulin in diabetes patients.

The study was presented Sunday at the American Diabetes Association's annual meeting and was also published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

It involved 247 patients with Type 1 diabetes, a disease that impacts the pancreas, an organ that produces the hormone insulin. People with Type 1 diabetes need to have insulin delivered by injections or by a pump. The study, called Aspire, was funded by Medtronic.

Current technology allows people who use insulin pumps to also wear a sensor that measures the amount of blood sugar in the body to help people program pumps to deliver the proper amount of insulin. Researchers have been working for years to link the two technologies in order to automate insulin delivery as part of an effort often referred to as an artificial pancreas.

"This represents a major step forward in the development of an artificial pancreas," said Dr. Anne Peters, the director of clinical diabetes programs at the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California, who was not involved in the study.