By Sean Fenske, Editor-in-Chief
 
Diabetes is a growing chronic disease and that progression doesn’t seem to be slowing anytime soon. As such, more people are going to be depending upon innovative technologies to help manage the condition. Therefore, all of those involved with the development and manufacture of these devices need to work together toward better solutions.
 
One primary instrument for controlling the disease is the insulin pump. As advancements continue, this component will be part of an integrated system that delivers insulin or other therapies required for the patient to maintain proper levels. As such, precision is paramount as the dosage of anything needs to be exact so as to not cause harm. The drives powering these pumps are critical.
 
To provide additional insight on what’s happening within this clinical space as well as with the drives themselves is Peter van Beek, medical business development manager at maxon. In the following Q&A, he shares his thoughts on the trends, technologies, and what’s ahead for diabetes care.
 
Sean Fenske: As a drive assembly expert, what trends in diabetes are you following or interested in?
 
Peter van Beek: One of the most interesting trends we are seeing is a transformation to an all-in-one pump design, which is fully capable of controlling blood sugar levels within the body. In the future, these pumps would continuously monitor blood sugar and allow input of consumed carbs (i.e., sugars). This data would be relayed via smart device to a monitoring algorithm that then feeds proper dosing of the hormones glucagon or insulin to the pump. Imagine the added freedoms and better control of blood sugar levels this sort of pump would provide diabetics.
 
Fenske: How are these trends impacting the design, development, and/or selection of maxon drive assemblies?
 

van Beek: As the trends focus on improving the user’s quality of life, the importance of high precision and exceptional quality must also be found in the design of these devices. The drive assemblies must be smaller but with the similar or improved performance to historically larger drive assemblies. In addition, longer battery life is a must for patient ease-of-use, which requires drives to be highly efficient.
 
Fenske: What types of drive assemblies are being utilized for insulin pumps and why? What benefits do they provide?
 
van Beek: Insulin pumps typically operate using a DC motor, gear, and sensor assembly. Generally, the diameter of the drive assembly is 10mm or less. As pumps have become smaller in both diameter and length, how these three components are combined is also changing. maxon can easily integrate components into a custom design (either in-line or U-shaped)—if you can imagine it, maxon can build it.
 
Fenske: What challenges does the need for portability bring to the equation? How are power concerns and size resolved for the insulin pump through the drive assembly?
 
van Beek: Portability is just another way of saying “running off a battery.” For maxon, the goal then becomes to provide a drive assembly with the highest efficiency and the longest motor life possible. This is easily achieved with maxon’s Rhombic ironless core winding technology. Additionally, this technology provides the added benefits of low EMI emissions, resulting in less disturbance to the surrounding electronics located near the drive assembly.
 
Fenske: What advancements do you anticipate for insulin pumps going forward that maxon will have to provide a solution for via the drive assembly?
 
van Beek: Due to the criticality of the application and associated risk, quality must be maintained at the highest level. This is a primary focus for maxon and something we definitely excel at. Future pump designs may require the pumping of glucagon and insulin transitioning from a single pump assembly to a dual pumping system. This will push the design of the individual drives to a smaller overall footprint; compactness is critical.
 
Fenske: Do you have any additional comments you’d like to share based on any of the topics we discussed or something you’d like to tell medical device manufacturers?
 
van Beek: The march of technology never stops, which is both exciting and challenging at the same time. Please consider maxon with our exceptional Swiss-based engineering talent and creativity, quality processes, clean rooms, collaborative design approach, and vast historical experience with the world’s smallest drive assemblies for your next diabetic drive assembly.
 
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