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The Accu-Chek Compact, a portable glucose monitor by Roche Diagnostics, was named a gold winner at the Medical Design Excellence Awards competition.
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IVD manufacturers know that the glucose-monitoring market offers the potential for big rewards, but this year the market has also produced a big award.
At the beginning of June, winning products in the 2002 Medical Design Excellence Awards (MDEA) competition were celebrated in a ceremony marked by announcement of the competition’s gold and silver awards. The Accu-Chek Compact glucose monitor by Roche Diagnostics Corp. (Mannheim, Germany) was named a gold award winner in the category of in vitro diagnostics, which includes biochemicals for diagnostic use, related instrumentation, and home-use devices.
The Accu-Chek Compact is a handheld, portable device for measuring blood glucose levels as part of a diabetes management regimen for the chronic diabetic. The device includes automated test-strip presentation and an adjustable pen-type lancet that can be clipped onto the outer housing of the device. The Roche monitor was the only IVD product to be honored in this year’s MDEA competition.
The MDEA entry was submitted by Design Continuum Inc. (West Newton, MA) on behalf of Roche. Principal designers of the monitor were Bruce Fifield, Thomas Sutton, Max Wolf, and Stefano Casartelli of Design Continuum.
The awards ceremony was held during the Medical Design & Manufacturing East 2002 Conference and Exposition at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center in New York City.
The MDEA competition is the only awards program of its type devoted exclusively to recognizing advances in the design of medical products. MDEA-winning products excel in the areas of product innovation, design and engineering excellence, end-user and patient benefits, and cost-effectiveness in manufacturing and healthcare delivery.
The intended user of the Accu-Chek Compact is the chronic diabetic (insulin- or non-insulin-dependent) who needs to monitor blood glucose frequently. The device is small enough to be carried in a pocket or worn on a belt. To operate, the user pricks his finger with the included lancet, applies a small blood drop on the automatically presented disposable test strip, and waits 15 seconds for the result.
To facilitate acceptance and use as a "normal" device and avoid any negative connotation associated with diabetic or medical products, the Roche glucose meter has the appearance of a mobile phone, personal digital assistant (PDA), or other nonmedical device. All of the monitor’s metering systems are integrated onto a single, easy-to-read LCD screen. A reloadable, self-contained drum of test strips eliminates the need to handle test strips prior to use, while providing the user with 17 tests. Functions are intuitive, from test-strip drum replacement to battery replacement.
The MDEA program is presented by Canon Communications (Los Angeles), publisher of IVD Technology and the competition’s sponsoring publication, Medical Device & Diagnostic Industry magazine.
Corporate sponsors of the 2002 MDEA program included Battelle Healthcare Products (Columbus, OH); Avail (Ft. Worth, TX), a medical device outsourcing firm; DuPont Tyvek sterile medical packaging (Wilmington, DE); Chevron Phillips/K-Resin (Houston), a family of polymers suited for medical device and packaging applications; TriVirix International (Chapel Hill, NC), a contract manufacturer of electronic and electromechanical devices; and The MedTech Group Inc. (Plainfield, NJ), a full-service company focused on designing and manufacturing molded parts and medical devices for the healthcare industry.
Copyright ©2002 IVD Technology