Vietnam is going to have a diabetes meter without blood injection?

Commercially available diabetes meters without blood injection can be successfully researched by young Vietnamese startups.

Vietnam is about to launch a non-invasive diabetes meter

Non-invasive diabetes meter (or blood-free injection) is part of the Zinmed diabetes management solution project. This project was initiated by a startup group of researchers - scientists.

Talk to us, TS. Chu Duc Hoang - Doctor of Biomedical Engineering and also Founder & CEO Zinmed said that this non-invasive "made in VN" diabetes meter is expected to be released in 2016 - the earliest than any other other brands in the world. Currently the same product developed by Glucowise (UK) is expected to be in the market until 2018.

Currently in the world, diabetes meters use invasive methods, ie, injecting a patient's blood into a test strip, then inserting a test strip into the meter to give a blood sugar reading. The nature of this process is based on a chemical reaction that measures the current that tests blood glucose levels. For patients who are indicated for blood glucose measurement 3 times / day, the minimum cost will cost 20,000 - 30,000 VND / day for the purchase of test strips.

However, the non-invasive blood glucose meter will solve this problem. Hoang said the non-invasive blood glucose meter works indirectly, using capacitive sensors and optical sensors with multiple infrared wavelengths from 1495nm to 2105nm to determine the correlation between Blood sugar parameters with measured sensor values. Thus, patients will not have pain when measuring blood sugar index and save the cost of test strips.

The operating principle of Zinmed's non-invasive glucose meter.

The technology for producing blood glucose meters without blood is not new. During the past 30 years, many large technology firms have participated in the study of this product line including Google and Apple. However, so far, in addition to Zinmed expected to commercialize products in 2016, the same project is currently developed by Glucowise - UK as early as 2018 to be launched.

'Break it down a few times already'

To produce this product is not easy. Hoang shared, Zinmed had to 'rebuild and rebuild' many times during the past time. Although the life of the project is still very young (established the company in September 2014), the founding team has spent more than ten years researching this diabetes to find a solution to produce the device. This special measurement.

The problem of finance, technology is also the problem that the founders of the project must face. Zinmed is still receiving a € 30,000 grant from the IPP organization to develop the product.

Hoang also had to go to England and the United States many times to study the research and learn the latest materials to improve the study of products more effectively. Currently , Zinmed's non-invasive diabetes meter can allow data synchronization from diabetes meter with mobile device via Bluetooth sensor, display results, save measurements and give advice for patients.

However, according to Zinmed, the exact level of non-invasive diabetes meters is only 70 to 80% . To improve the accuracy of the blood glucose measurement results, the project team still has a lot of work to do.

That is not to mention the commercialization problem, developing to bring this product to the community is not simple. Hoang said: 'We are well aware of the company's desire to produce 100 billion VND in revenue, the company will have to spend at least 500 million VND to research and develop products, 5 billion VND to operate the apparatus and up to 50 billion of communication money to bring products to consumers. But Zinmed is only in the range of 500 million to 5 billion, the road to 50 billion is still very far.

Newly born more than 1 year but Zinmed is quite successful when it won the second prize "Startup Wheel 2015" by the Center for Youth Start-up Business (BSSC) and Ho Chi Minh City Young Entrepreneurs Association (YBA) for more. 530 startups from all over Vietnam. The project also received a 30,000 euro grant from IPP and investments from VSVA, Intel, Microsoft and IBM.