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Diabetes Connections | Type 1 Diabetes
BONUS Episode: TempraMed wants to pair smart insulin tracking with temperature protection
00:21:04
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- [00:05]
A
Welcome to a bonus episode of Diabetes Connections. I'm your host, Stacey Sims. You know, we aim to educate and inspire about diabetes with a focus on people who use insulin. And years ago I had to look this up because I wasn't exactly sure when I did this, but it was 2017. I did a segment in the show for many weeks called Shop Talk. I talked to every vendor at the very large Friends for Life conference and I gave them a few minutes to talk about their product or their book or, you know, whatever they were doing. It turned out that that was a ridiculous amount of work for a solo podcaster, and so I haven't done it since. But I still do like to spotlight useful and new products in our community. I've been talking to the folks at Vivi Cap at tempremed, the company that makes vivicap, for a few years now, and it's been fun watching their progress. I wanted to catch up and find out more about what they've been up to when it comes to insulin storage, especially as we get closer to the hot summer months. They launched new products in the last year. Smart insulin storage that helps you track dosing and a new case with more cooling protection. They've also branched out to products other than insulin. And look, I don't want this to sound like a big commercial. Like I said, it really has been interesting to track the progress and. And we have used this product for many years. But I do wanna be transparent. I am an affiliate, so if you choose to purchase through the link on my website, I may receive a small commission. Having said that, I think what they're doing here is really interesting and really necessary. I had 3 friends in the last 2 weeks ask me what we use to keep insulin cool when we travel. So I think there's a lot of interest in this topic. So here's my conversation with Ran Nagar, the founder and CEO of Tempirmed, the company that makes the BivvyCap. Ranagar. Welcome back to Diabetes Connections. It's good to talk to you again. How are you?
- [01:58]
B
Yeah, again, nice to be back here, Stacy, and thank you for giving me the opportunity to host me. We're very excited with the new launch of our coming products, the VVCupSmart and the VV Med that we've recently announced. And actually I have them with me here and I'll be very happy to share that with you first.
- [02:23]
A
Yeah, let's talk about this because last time we spoke, you were about to launch the smart version of Vivi Cap. So tell me what it does. What will people expect out of it?
- [02:34]
B
Yeah. VVCUP Smart is basically a transformation of the regular vvcap adding to it connectivity and the ability to track and record each and every injection. It's responsive so you, you the you do not have to initiate or to remember to do anything basically with every injection that you make. And it's pan agnostic so it accepts all insulin and certain GLP1 pins. Then with every injection you make there are two things that happen. A counter on the actual device resets and start counting from zero. Basically allowing you to have a glimpse of the immediate glimpse of the last time that you made an injection. So you want, you know, double inject or forgot that you have injected or, or miss an injection. And another thing that happens is that at the same time that the counter resets, an app on your mobile phone alerts you and ask you to insert or by voice or by keypad the amount that was injected. And that information is captured in the app, transferred to the cloud and then can be shared and analyzed. And all those bells and whistles that can be manipulated or used on that information in order for you to give better treatment and basically take the burden of having to remember or to record or to do something or to remember that you have to comply with something and record every injection and take that away from you.
- [04:15]
A
For those who may not be familiar with what the device looks like, can you describe it? I know you can show it to us, but for those listening, can you describe it? This is still the kind of the shell that goes around the pen.
- [04:27]
B
Yes, it goes around the pen and I'm for in case that you will show that then I have it with me. Basically it's going around the pen. The base unit is the temperature shield that goes around the section that holds the insulin in the insulin compartment of the pen. And the top part now comes on the other side of the pen and serves as the mechanical protector to the other part of the pen. And also houses the counter that you can see that was just reset as I took it off and put it back on. And an electronics that connects to the app for those that don't, do not remember. The beauty of the VV cap temperature shield is that it's completely hassle free device. You do not have to do anything, just use it and it does all by itself. During the day it protects and shields the insulin from extreme high and even low temperatures. And during nighttime the heat absorber that sits inside the device self regenerates Its its capability to absorb heat for the following day.
- [05:36]
A
So there's no battery, there's nothing to plug in, Nothing like that?
- [05:39]
B
Well, there is a battery, certainly for the part that, that use the, that runs the, the communication. With the Smart app, there is a battery, a rechargeable battery that, that needs to be recharged once every 10 days. So it's not something that you have to remember to do every day. And it's very easy. It's 15 minutes or even less than that to full charge for the next 10 days. The temperature shield part of the device houses another battery that is not rechargeable. You don't have to remember to charge it or do anything. All that it does, it provides you. It runs the indicator that measures the temperature. With every time that you press the button at the end of the device, it measures the temperature and, and provide an indication on the temperature status of the device and the, and the medication inside it.
- [06:31]
A
All right, so the smart part of this, the measuring and the part that connects to the app. Let's talk about that again for just a minute. Because I think that, I mean, and it's been a very long time since my son was on insulin shots, but my son and my husband. My husband has type 2 take GLP1 medications now. So there's always that question in the back of my mind, did they do it? When did they do it? When did they take it? So let me ask you about that. Since the product has been out, what's the feedback been? Are people using it in the way you hoped? Are they finding new ways? You know, this community, they always find new ways to measure stuff.
- [07:05]
B
We had some feedback from people that even the counter on this device that actually it counts. And it's, you know, it's nice that you mentioned GLP1s, because then you need to do what once weekly injection? So this counter counts the time even to 10 days. So you can tell when was the last time just by glimpsing on the counter. When was the last time that medication was taken, a GLP1 medication, even without getting into the app and with just the VVcup Smart, because we have just launched also the VV Med for people by that we're addressing, I think, many requests that we received along the last two years. People were asking us, what about vials? And we responded by launching the vivimed, which is a slightly larger version of the VV cap. And it houses up to two vials or one vial and one container of strips. Some people still use strips. I know that CGM becoming a Commodity and maybe and many are using CGMS now, but still there are people that use strips and, and strips are extremely temperature sensitive. And for that the, the VV Med that can house two vials or one vial and one strip container is a proper address to those people and providing them a solution. And again, it's a completely hassle free solution. Works 24 7, 365 days for years like that. No need to charge it or to do anything.
- [08:46]
A
I have a lot of questions about the vials, but you mentioned it works for years. Do you have an indication on how long these things really do last for?
- [08:55]
B
Well, we had, since we are, we're following up the feedback that we got from users and we have users that sent us a request after three and four years of using the device, they're coming back to us asking why does it still continue to work after such a long time? Well, it continues to work. And again the technology that runs the temperature shield can function for decades. So it's not just one year, it's for decades. The only limit to the lifetime of the, of the part of VVcup and VV Med to that extent is the fact that the battery that runs the temperature indicator has a shelf life of up to 10 years. Now we never know whether that that battery is, it's in, in the first year of, of life or in the second year of life, but it has several years of life. And obviously depending on how often you check the temperature, you can have few thousands of potential runs of the temperature indicator before the battery runs out of power. But even then the technology that runs the temperature shield will continue to work. You just won't be able to know what's exactly the temperature status of the device.
- [10:19]
A
Yeah, so when you're talking about something like insulin and I already hear some listeners skeptical of that, how do they know when, what do you say? And I can check your website right now. Right. But like what do you say? What do you tell people? What's a safe and appropriate length that someone could use this product for?
- [10:35]
B
What we say is that as long as you use it according to the user guide which teaches you that assumes that you are coming back home once a day or at nighttime, the temperature, even if you're out there, the temperature goes to even in the desert when the sun goes down and it becomes a little bit cooler, then it will continue to work like that without any intervention for years.
- [11:04]
A
All right, so let's talk about the vials. I was really interested when you said you had strips in there. A space for strips. Because I'm thinking why wouldn't you put a syringe in with vials if you're going to put anything with it? But it's because of the temperature sensitivity. Yeah, but you know, strips are temperature sensitive.
- [11:18]
B
Exactly. And you don't need to put the syringe in because it's just a piece of plastic.
- [11:22]
A
Right, right. Yeah, that's really interesting. I was trying to follow that. Like many people, my son uses cgm so he very rarely does finger sticks. But he does carry a little thing with him that has, you know, one lancer and little strips with him. But I did not think about temperature. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? What are the limitations on test strips? Do you know?
- [11:43]
B
Yes, well, you can go and dig the literature, but every strip container indicates that the upper limit temperature for the strips is 30 degrees centigrade or 80, 86 Fahrenheit. And in fact, and you know, I've been using strips myself, I'm not a diabetic but my wife likes to, to measure everything. So as, as we get to, to be older, she likes to, to measure ourselves at least once a week to tell what is our, what's the status of our blood sugars. And all of a sudden one day I, you know, doing a finger stick, usually I'm around 90, 98 in the morning, it was 140. And then I recognized that, you know, the strip container was, was housed in a, in a place in our, in our house that was not very well air conditioned and the temperature during the summertime in that particular zone can easily get above 30 degrees centigrade. Uh, so we, we basically we replaced the strip and got new strips and immediately noticed that the you know, blood, blood euchre was, was around where we used to see it and not such high. So basically the error can get to be even 30 to 40%. And that's already documented in the literature. So there is a bias usually tending to higher blood sugars than the regular ones when strips are exposed to extreme temperature, high temperatures.
- [13:23]
A
Is the vivimed the vial container, is that out on the market? Can people buy that? Can I see what it looks like?
- [13:28]
B
Yes.
- [13:28]
A
Oh, like a little mini thermos.
- [13:30]
B
Okay. So it's not just for people that live with diabetes, it's also for biologics. So it has basically two top covers. There is a short top cover and there's a long top cover. The long top cover are for biologics like injectors, like, like Humira for For example, that can. Can sit inside. And this, as you can see, can hold inside this is the long acting insulin vial.
- [14:00]
A
Ah.
- [14:01]
B
And a short acting insulin vial. You can put both of them inside and close it. That's it.
- [14:08]
A
That's great. And you don't need any insulation, you don't need to put anything in between the bottles?
- [14:12]
B
No, no, no, just put them inside. This is, you can see the insulation through this is a transparent part plastic that protects the thermal insulation, which is basically the same thermal insulation that we have in vivicap. It's just slightly larger since it has to hold the vials and the biologics, which are. Has a slightly larger diameter than the regular insulin pens. It also holds the GLP1s that come with this injector from Eli Lilly, for example.
- [14:47]
A
Oh, with the wide base?
- [14:49]
B
Yeah, with the wide base. So you put it inside and then you can close it like that. This injector, since it is wide and has a wide base, will not fit into the vivica. But it will fit, it fits the vivimet.
- [15:04]
A
And as you listen, I will link up in the show notes some links so that you can see this. But basically it's about the width of a, I'll say a toilet paper roll, but longer. And it is, it's a reflective looking kind of chrome material. But I'm hesitating, Ron. It looks to me like, I don't know if anyone remembers this, the pneumatic tubes that you would send in the bank. But skinnier. It's a lot skinnier. So I will link up a picture because that's a terrible description for anybody under the age of 972. But that's really good because over the years we've tried lots of different things to keep insulin cooler when we travel. As Benny got older, and I know that there's different use cases for this, but ours was, as he got older, this got a little bit less important. But when he was younger and used such little bits of insulin, you'd go away for a week and you wouldn't want to. You'd come home with almost a full bottle. So you wouldn't want to waste any of it. And certainly you don't want to waste any of it now, but he just
- [16:09]
B
uses more now, you know, looking forward and certainly with the AI transformation that we have these days and data and everything, and AI is almost everywhere and it can help in many aspects when it comes to addressing the needs of people living with diabetes. One thing that AI cannot solve and actually the fact that More data is there. And the data, all the data every time now still assumes whenever it comes to providing advice to people how much insulin they should inject the next time. All this information or the data analysis assumes that the insulin is at full potency every time they do that. So it actually becoming more important with the AI going forward that this part of the treatment that was maybe unnoticed until now will be actually solved and be addressed. And this is the mission that we have took on ourselves. Providing hassle free solution that may help people that live with chronic conditions, taking a little bit of the burden away from them so they won't have to take care of their medication. We'll do that for them. And they won't have to remember to write down every time that they make an injection or so. Again, try to take this little burden away from them, making their life a little bit easier.
- [17:44]
A
Ron, we've been following this for many years now and as you said, you don't live with diabetes. Why do you keep going with this? Are you still excited about this product you keep adding to the line?
- [17:54]
B
Yeah, I think because it makes an impact on so many living people and with time now we're not just about people living with diabetes, but people living with obesity that they using GLP1s and other chronic conditions, you know, biologics everywhere, you can find it everywhere. And we have took on ourselves the mission to provide this missing block that was underestimated, untreated until now. We want to be there to make sure that all the burden that was put into the development of those medications will serve eventually at its most. And while it's been taken care for all the way until it is dispensed to the end user, the end user is missing a proper solution to maintain that conditions throughout the time that he or she is using those medications. So we are there to address that need.
- [18:55]
A
Did I miss anything you wanted to talk about?
- [18:57]
B
No. Let's see what's coming up next year because I cannot tell more now. Basically we are a public company and so we have some limitations that we did not have before. We have more products, more exciting news coming out through this year, so stay tuned.
- [19:15]
A
Excellent. I love a sneak peek. Ron, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate your time. I love what you're doing and thanks for coming on and keeping us updated.
- [19:24]
B
Thank you. My pleasure, Stacy. Thank you.
- [19:32]
A
There will be more information on the website of course in this episode episode's homepage and as I said, you know I am an affiliate so you can click on the vivicap link that's always on the homepage. And if you purchase through there, I may make a small commission from that. But I think this kind of information is really interesting, especially as you heard they're branching out into more medications, especially the different shape of the injector. If you or somebody, you know, uses one of those injectors that has the larger base, you know, it can be a problem to fit into a regular insulin pen case. If you've got another way you're keeping insulin cold, I would love to hear about it. We're gonna put a post in the Facebook group as well. Diabetes Connections, the group, so you all can sound off and help each other. Because, you know, for many of you and in my family, too, it's not just insulin you have to worry about anymore. We're using more medications that need to be kept cool or at least to room temperature. All right, so thanks to my editor, John Buchenis from Audio Editing Solutions, and thank you so much for listening. I'm Stacey Sims. I'll see you back here soon. We do have a couple more bonus episodes. I told you I was clearing the decks. So watch for those scattered here and there. But we will be back with a regular interview episode this Tuesday. Until then, be kind to yourself.
- [20:50]
B
Diabetes Connections is a production of Stacy Sims Media. All rights reserved. All wrongs avenged.