Roche Diagnostics Ltd has recently introduced new insulin pump namely Accu-Chek Spirit in the domestic market. The product is priced around Rs 1.5 lakh per kit. The kit will have disposable parts like needles and catheters that will have to be bought every month. The price of these disposable parts will be Rs 6000.
Sanjay Gupta, head, Roche Diagnostics Diabetes Care - India says, "The launch of Accu-Chek Spirit has taken a step towards completing the circle between diabetes monitoring, insulin therapy and advice for people with diabetes to achieve better self management. The product is designed to make a life of a diabetic live the way they prefer. Roche Diagnostics offers Accu-Chek Spirit users a support package with practical training sequences to introduce the diabetics to the insulin pump. There is an extensive homepage for users who want more information on insulin pump therapy, product information, support material or useful hints and links."
It is launched for the first time in India and is available across six metros namely, Chennai, Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Hyderabad. With the help of Accu - Chek Spirit, the need of multiple daily injections can be avoided. It is safe, easy, simple, convenient, and flexible. It optimises blood glucose levels and helps significantly reduce long-term complications. With its innovative features such as three operating menus, four bolus options, and five basal rate profiles.
Accu Chek Spirit makes insulin pump therapy more flexible and convenient for people with diabetes. It enables doctors and people with diabetes to adjust insulin delivery perfectly to individual needs. With this, diabetes management can thus be optimised for better health and quality of life.
The company's newly launched product would be beneficial for those people who need up to four shots of insulin daily as well as for the pregnant women with diabetes. It gives them more flexibility to choose what they eat, when they want to eat and how much they want to eat. Athletic activity does not have to be planned hours in advance. Shift work, pregnancy or invitations for dinner are typical metabolic challenges that can be easily managed with an insulin pump. Pumps are being used successfully by children, adolescents and pregnant or breast-feeding women.
The product is contains three different operating menus which provides the option to programme the insulin pump according to the people's level of experience and individual requirements. The standard menu for beginners is easy to handle and provides the basic features of the pump. The advanced menu for experienced users allows the use of all the features Accu-Chek Spirit also offers custom menu for individual needs, which enables the people with diabetes to choose menu functions according to preference.
According to Dr Shashank Joshi, consultant Endocrinologist, Lilavati Hospital says, "Insulin pumps are not only useful for type 1 children with diabetes but even adults with type 2 as well pregnancy diabetes. It is most useful for people with sugars which go haywire from low to high, and thus maintain a poor glycosylated hb (mean or average blood glucose level) above 10. It is a novel evidence base advance now available for Indians and is the first component to close the loop for artificial pancreas."
While speaking about further development about kit Gupta, said, "We are in talks with Citibank to finance the pump for patients. The banks would provide personal loans to patients at rates, or use a method where equated monthly instalments (EMI) would be charged to a credit card. The product is launched in metros and in a few months it will be launched in mini metros".