It’s both exciting and slightly demoralising walking around the exhibition hall at a truly international diabetes conference. Exciting because it’s often where new things are launched. And it’s a good place to find coffee. Demoralising because a lot of the exciting things will never make their way to Australian shores. And the coffee can be really shit (the Lilly coffee stand was staffed by Aussie baristas, so it because my favourite!).

On day one, I wandered around the Expo Hall at EASD, doing the circuit a number of times. I seemed to find myself repeatedly drawn to stands showcasing insulin pumps. Maybe it was subconscious. Maybe it was just that their stands were the brightest!

Interestingly, Medtronic was not at EASD. Their absence was conspicuous – especially in a week of another product recall – and one that really is significant. I did see several talks that mentioned the 670G however, so it was disappointing that they were not here to answer the questions that many people seemed to have. (Although, given that I spent most of my time with European advocates, those questions would have all been variations of ‘When are we getting it?’…)

Animas was tucked away in the corner of the J&J stand, with no news on offer about where things are with the long-promised, and long-awaited Vibe Plus which is integrated with Dexcom G5. Rumour on the street (but it is just rumour) is that it’s not happening any time soon.

There was little mention of the Roche pump offering on their stand, although there were images and sales staff to answer questions. But there is nothing new coming in this space from them at the moment with most of their energies being dedicated to MySugr, GoCarb and the Senseonics implantable sensor.

I said hi to the European Cellnovo staff (all of whom somewhat disconcertingly knew who I was). They are super excited about launching in Australia. There is nothing new from them at this stage (but you can read my initial thoughts on the pump here, and Frank Sita’s here.)


No stranger to the Australian market, DANA had a pretty damn big and glossy stand here at EASD, proudly branded with their somewhat odd tag line is ‘Ubiquitous insulin pump’. DANA in Australia (distributed via a third party) has had some issues in Australia recently – mostly to do with the availability of their infusion sets.


The most exciting news from DANA was their big EASD announcement of their new pump – the DANA RS. You can read Mike Hoskins’, from Diabetes Mine, scoop about it here, but the essence is that the pump is ‘Android OpenAPS-able’ without the need for an additional piece of hardware. This is a very big step in the very right direction for integration of pumps with the whole #WeAreNotWaiting philosophy and congrats to the team for embracing it.

What I’m far less enthusiastic about is that DANA has persisted with using a proprietary battery. I find this really, really appalling and utterly non-user-centric. This was the case with the previous DANA R pump, and to replace the battery, users needed to place an order for cartridges.

No idea when the new DANA will be in Australia… I guess it’s just a wait and see, but absolute credit to DANA for making it possible for people to use Android OpenAPS with a new pump.

Ypsomed (‘Ipso-med’) had their nifty Ypsopump (‘Ipso-pump’) on show and I had a little play. It’s fun – I like the look of it and it is super-easy to use. I’ve been told that they are heading down under, so please do watch this space!


And finally, the bright and shiny team from Kaleido were brightly and shinily showing off their pump again. It still is beautiful. It still is fun. It also still is not on the market. I really, really would like to see them actually get to launch stage. And soon.


Okay, so the pump wash-up in relation to Australia is this: it looks like we might actually start to have some real choice on the pump market in the (hopefully) not-too-distant future. I remain frustrated with the current situation, dismayed that if I wanted a new pump this very minute (which I am entitled to) my choice is a pump that is just too large and clunky with features that just don’t work for me, or exactly the same pump as I’ve been using for the last four and a half years. Come 1 October Cellnovo will be ready to go with consumables on the NDSS, and there is the first hint of improved choice for people with diabetes.

And that can only be a bloody good thing!