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Cutting-edge wearable health devices including Valeritas Holdings’s V-Go® Wearable Insulin Delivery device will be featured during a special event called “Digital Health Wearables in Action” at the MD&M East 2018 show June 12 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. The game-changing insulin delivery device, which features an injection molded cartridge made with TOPAS® cyclic olefin copolymer (COC) from Polyplastics USA Inc., offers patients with Type 2 diabetes a simple, affordable, all-in-one option that is worn like a patch and can eliminate the need for taking multiple daily shots.
David Lewis, Vice President of Marketing for Valeritas Holdings, Inc., will be among five presenters who will show off their device “fashion show style” on June 12 at 12 noon in the Medtech theater, located at the rear of the Expo Hall in booth 773. Other participants include medical device manufacturers including Somatix, CloudDX, Inc., Kinetic, and Shade.
“These technologies are enabling new capabilities in mobile healthcare, with a focus on prevention, screening, and disease management, according to show organizer UBM. Each presenter will make a five-minute presentation and bring a sample of their device to pass around to the audience. At the conclusion of the event, the five panelists will address questions.
V-Go is designed to simplify basal-bolus insulin therapy and helps make blood glucose control possible for adults. V-Go is a simple, affordable, and fully disposable device and works with no electronics, batteries, infusion sets, or programming. It is small, lightweight, and worn under clothing. V-Go is commercially available in the U.S.
A critical component of the V-Go’s insulin delivery device is the cartridge made with TOPAS COC. After thorough research and evaluation, the material was selected over competitive thermoplastics due to its purity, drug compatibility, biocompatibility, and dimensional stability, according to Geoffrey Jenkins, executive vice president of manufacturing and research and development for Valeritas. TOPAS COC can also be molded with zero draft.
“TOPAS COC fills an important role in the cartridge system of the V-Go insulin delivery device,” said Jenkins. “We find it to be highly stable in contact with the drug and it has great optical clarity; moreover, it offers good injection molding characteristics with excellent dimensional stability and minimal shrinkage.”
Unlike other engineering thermoplastics or glass, TOPAS COC offers a non-ionic, minimally reactive surface. This non-polar substrate does not promote adsorption, denaturation, aggregation, or precipitation. Glass-clear TOPAS resin has very low leachables and extractables compared to glass and other medical grade polymers for drug delivery and thus preserves long-term drug purity and enables better quality at high yields.
The tube-shaped cartridge contains 1ml of insulin. Valeritas reports that users switching from multiple daily insulin shots to V-Go significantly lowered their glucose levels and reduced their insulin use by as much as 44% per day.
