Embecta has made a new addition to the repertoire of its diabetes sales teams: an all-in-one, push-button fingerstick glucose reader developed by Intuity Medical.
Launched this past April as a spinout from the medtech giant BD, embecta has signed an agreement with Intuity to co-promote the latter’s Pogo Automatic system among U.S. healthcare professionals, alongside its large portfolio of insulin delivery systems and other diabetes hardware.
Embecta described the Pogo, which launched in November 2021, as a way for the company to enter an “innovative new category” of diabetes devices. “Automatic blood glucose monitoring is transforming this vital aspect of self-management into something truly seamless and simple for people with diabetes,” embecta’s North American president, Tom Blount, said in a release. The financial terms of the commercial collaboration were not disclosed.
Intuity’s FDA-cleared, handheld device combines lancets with replaceable cartridges containing 10 glucose testing strips, allowing users to collect blood and obtain a result in a single step. The carousel-like cartridge rotates to provide clean testing hardware for each use, while levels are displayed on a screen and wirelessly synced with a smartphone app.
The over-the-counter system is meant as a simpler alternative to manually performed blood sugar tests—for adults and adolescents ages 13 and up—but not as frequent a gauge as continuous glucose monitoring systems that require sensors embedded under the skin.
Embecta found itself in an interesting position, starting this year as a brand-new company despite a history of products going back nearly 100 years—with BD offering the first specialized insulin syringe in 1924.
The company’s CEO, Devdatt Kurdikar, previously told Fierce Medtech that embecta plans to hold onto BD’s product names, and slowly transition customers to rebranded stock over a period of about two years. Meanwhile, embecta aims to invest specifically in emerging markets, to expand the footprint of a company that already reaches 30 million people in more than 100 countries.