Last Friday, as I was getting ready to fly home from Copenhagen, I realised that the beautiful city was being inundated with some of my favourite European diabetes bloggers and advocates.

I was lucky enough to manage to meet up with the truly wonderful Tine who I have come to know and love through my involvement in the Roche Blogger program. When it comes to dynamic, sassy, smart and downright wonderful advocates, Tine is at the top of the list. We caught up briefly, talked about diabetes and language, and drank iced coffees and I am so glad that I got to see her gorgeous face.

Tine. She is so wonderful!

Unfortunately the rest of us were ships in the night and probably standing right near each other on opposite sides of the departure/arrival gates divide at Copenhagen airport. Brutal!

My friends were in Copenhagen to meet with the team from YpsoMed, which they do a couple of times a year, to talk about the YpsoPump and other YpsoMed products, advances in diabetes technologies and come together for some peer support. Some of them are using the YpsoPump, but certainly not all of them.

I’ve had a play with the YpsoPump a few times in recent years. My good mate Finn, who blogs here, (in German; Google Tanslate is your friend) stayed with us a couple of years ago when he visited Australia, and I tried bribing him with Tim Tams in exchange for his YpsoPump. Alas, my tactics didn’t work. (Apparently he needs it to infuse insulin into his body or something.)

And each year at EASD, I would annoy the team on the YpsoMed stand by demanding to know when they were bringing their pump to Australia. (This is standard line of questioning for me at international conferences when I see technology I like the look of and thing we should have access to. I am probably known as the annoying woman from Australia, a badge I am willing to wear and a cross I am willing to bear.)

Yesterday, the YpsoPump was launched in Australia. I’d like to think it was my pestering, but the reality is that it is a smart move by a company that has been around the diabetes world for some time now and saw a market that is truly crying out for some choice.

Lucky us!

So, here are a couple of things of note about the YpsoPump

  • Undeniably, the first thing that is abundantly clear is the size of the pump. It is teeny-tiny compared with other offerings. The Medtronic 640G, in a side by side comparison, looks like a monster. (This was one of my criticisms when I trailed that 640G a couple of years ago. It felt bulky, clumsy and huge!) The YpsoPump is streamlined and sleek, and sits comfortably down my bra. (First thing I did with it. I know; all class.)
  • The touchscreen and icons are a departure from the buttons we have come to expect on insulin pumps. When the pump is ‘sleeping’ it is completely black and blank. This adds to the sleek look of the device.

(Having a little play at EASD last year.)

  • It is pretty easy and intuitive to use. We got to have a play and set up the pump yesterday and it was simple and logical. Loading and priming the glass cartridge was quick. The cartridge holds 1.6ml of insulin – this is not a pump for people on huge daily doses of insulin.
  • The pump uses and is integrated with a smart phone app (search MyLife from the App Store to download for free). At this stage it is uni-directional, so the pump cannot be driven from your phone. (i.e. The pump speaks to the phone/app; the phone/app doesn’t speak to the pump.) However, this is something that will, in the future, happen. (‘In the future’ apparently means a couple of years.) For those of us Looping, we shake our heads, because we are currently doing this and it makes no sense that regulatory processes are holding up something that is already available and perfectly safe. It also negates the whole thing about discretion when it comes to the pump. If you still need to pull it out from under your clothes, it doesn’t matter how small the thing is – you still need to pull it out from under your clothes!
  • Really pleasingly, customer service is all being run out of Australia which means that whoever you speak with has a really good understanding of the Aussie health system. This is especially useful for ironing out any potential glitches with getting approval through PHI.
  • Consumables are already on the NDSS. Want this pump? It’s ready to go. Talk to your HCP!

Two other things I asked about were a little broader than simply the use, design and practicalities of the pump.

Firstly, I wanted to know what was going to be done to protect us from coming to love this device, only to see it disappear from the market in four or six or eight years’ time. I have lived through the loss of the beloved Cosmo pump (I LOVED that pump!) and now Animas. While for some this can be seen as just an evolving market, I think it is much more than that. We are intimately connected with these devices. We see pumps come and go from the market. We invest in them, we become attached to them (literally and figuratively). To have them disappear from the market is heartbreaking for some people. I was grateful that Eberhard from YposMed acknowledged our disappointment. He told us that the company has been around for a long time and is very invested in continuing to provide new, innovative and cutting edge technologies to the diabetes market. I hope he is right, because I can see people falling in love with this pump very easily.

And secondly, I wanted to know what sort of engagement YpsoMed were doing to ensure that what they are delivering (they have a lot of things in the pipeline, including a patch pump due for release in 2012/22) really aligned with what people with diabetes want and need. Their engagement with the community is strong and they seem committed to it. The European blogger group has been meeting regularly and provide feedback on design and development. The launch of the product into Australia was with consumers (the HCP launch is today). There is definitely a desire to work and link closely with people in the community and that should be commended.

Just some of the advocates and bloggers at the YpsoPump launch yesterday.

With the YpsoPump ready to go in Australia, we are seeing increased choice in the pump market. No longer should we feel pushed into a pump that we don’t really want because that’s all there is, or all that is supported. This is only a good thing for people with diabetes.

You can find out more about the YpsoPump by going here.

DISCLOSURES

You bet! YpsoMed flew me to Sydney, put me up in a hotel, and fed and watered me. They did not pay me for my time, nor for my words. They did not pay me to ask annoying questions – or to not ask annoying questions for that matter. You can and should consider this when reading what I have written today.