After battling it out on Centre Stage, the audience cast their final votes. A moment of waiting and… we have it! Congratulations to Nutrix, who were crowned on Centre Stage at Web Summit 2019 tech conference this week, for their innovative solution to measuring glucose in the blood without needles.
Maria Hahn, CEO & Founder of Nutrix, receiving the main prize at Web Summit 2019
Source: https://portugalinews.eu/web-summit-announces-nutrix-as-pitch-winner/
Diabetes prevalence
Firstly, we will look at the data. It is estimated that 415 million people are living with diabetes in the world, which is estimated to be 1 in 11 of the world’s adult population. 46% of people with diabetes are undiagnosed. The forecast is as follows: the figure is expected to rise to 642 million people living with diabetes worldwide by 2040.
Nutrix’s vision
This year’s winner of Web Summit PITCH, powered by Siemens is going to disrupt the way health is monitored. Today it is only when you are unwell that you get the information from your doctor. Nutrix wants to give the people a chance to monitor this before.
Nutrix
Source: https://nutrix.tech/
Future of glucose monitoring
Currently, Nutrix is developing a high tech nanosensor that is placed on the tooth which detects glucose level in the saliva and transfers information to an external app. Nutrix is invisible, non-invasive, and patient-friendly. Additionally, it will track food intake and provide valuable information for the patient and artificial pancreas algorithms.
Nutrix’s nanosensor technology
Source: https://nutrix.tech/
Progress and development
Nutrix is being incubated at University Children’s Hospital Basel and developed at CSEM lab a private, non-profit Swiss research and technology organization.
Advantages
It is not the mere fact of monitoring blood glucose that arouses the greatest enthusiasm. It turns out that you can control the level of other chemicals in the same way. The technology proposed by the startup becomes useful not only for people who are sick and their lives depend on the level of specific substances in the blood. It is also an effective way to control the compounds consumed every day.
Correct blood sugar is important not just for diabetics. Fluctuations in blood sugar levels can contribute to weight gain and fat deposits all over the body. Therefore, it is a mistake to think that glucose levels should be controlled only by those who have diabetes.
So we get to the point where we can confidently say that the use of Nutrix is an effective way to prevent civilization diseases.
Finally, Nutrix has a long-term vision that goes further than just glucose. This is their current focus, but ultimately the company wants to go into how to monitor the reaction of the immune system.
Diabetes and the environment
There are more advantages. Blood glucose test strips are the basic equipment of every diabetic. The strips are used for self-monitoring of blood glucose. They are used once and then discarded.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, lancets are medical wastes called sharps. Sharps can be dangerous to that handling garbage if they are thrown in the regular trash. What is more, many people do not pay attention to the safe disposal of their medical waste. The use of a nanosensor eliminates the need for strips and reduces harmful effects on the environment.
Cost-effectiveness
An additional advantage of eliminating the need to use measuring instruments is not only the reduction of harmful effects on the environment. The less intrusive (read needleless) device will be sold at half the price of existing devices.
Invisible, non-invasive, patient-friendly. Good for the Earth and still less costly. There is nothing else to do but observe how Nutrix revolutionizes medicine. Soon, checking how many chemicals you ate during the day will be a matter of opening the app.
Can you imagine all of that data on your mobile device’s screen without the need of doing blood tests?
References:
[1] https://portugalinews.eu/web-summit-announces-nutrix-as-pitch-winner/
[2] https://www.diabetes.co.uk/diabetes-prevalence.html
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diabetes