Our Careself-monitoring of blood glucose

Mr. Takayuki Sugiyama, who is currently the development leader of the ’next-generation blood glucose measurement device’ has been involved in the development of glucose measurement devices for almost ten years. At the beginning, he only had a limited knowledge of diabetes as being a ‘lifestyle-related disease’ and didn’t even realize that there are two types of diabetes, Type 1 and Type 2. Diabetes was a distant world to him at that time.

However, in the course of product development, he had the opportunity to attend related conferences internationally where he was able to hear the real voices of doctors and diabetes patients. He experienced firsthand the worries, pains, and hopes of patients.
Sugiyama's perception of diabetes and diabetes patients changed dramatically from that point.

Sugiyama: “I learned that diabetes is a very difficult disease that requires the patient to make repeated efforts to control it every day. One parent of a pediatric patient who had been using a glucose measurement device since infancy said that the biggest fear was low blood sugar. Blood glucose monitoring is the starting point for diabetes patients to take their next action, such as eating a candy or a meal. However, some patients were using two different blood glucose measurement devices because the results didn’t match their perception, or they were not happy with the accuracy. While talking with KOL doctors at conferences in Europe and the U.S., I learned that the reliability of the readings was of the utmost importance, which encouraged me to believe that there must be something I can do as a Terumo engineer.”

Glucose monitoring measures the amount of glucose in the blood. But the red blood cells, which are abundant in the blood, interfere with the accurate measurement of glucose. To solve this issue, Sugiyama and his team developed a technique that measures glucose using five types of light. Four wavelengths are used to obtain information on the red blood cells which cause noise, and the remaining wavelength is used to capture the color of the reagent which changes according to the amount of glucose. By accurately measuring the amount of red blood cells and eliminating noise, the accuracy of blood glucose measurement is enhanced.

Sugiyama: “When we conducted individual evaluation of glucose measurement devices distributed in the U.S., nearly half showed errors of ±15% or more. This was probably due to the fact that they were kept in environments that exceeded the specified storage temperature range of 1℃ to 30℃. Considering the actual usage scenarios, for example, the product may be placed in a car in the middle of summer or outdoors. Therefore, it was also necessary to develop a technology to achieve heat resistance that maintains accuracy even in such environments.”

In collaboration with a university, Sugiyama and his team studied enzymes that are highly stable even at high temperatures. In addition, they identified various conditions that affect heat resistance, such as the material, shape, and sealing of the container in which the chips are stored, and succeeded in developing a technology that realizes effective heat resistance.

Sugiyama: “From surveys, we’ve learned that patients are concerned about blood glucose measurement when they go out. Although they are supposed to measure their blood glucose four times a day, it seems that some are reluctant to do so because they are worried about being noticed taking measurements in public places. Nowadays, we are surrounded by many excellently designs of devices such as smartphones. With the aim of creating a blood glucose measurement device that diabetes patients throughout the world can use with confidence and easily carry around, we are collaborating with a Scandinavian company to pursue a sophisticated design that is unprecedented from a global perspective.”

And along with the design, it is also necessary to consider size and weight reductions for portability which is an extremely tough technical challenge. In order to achieve both performance and compactness as a medical device, electronic components have to be packed into a small volume. Sugiyama and his team are also working on developing technologies for size and weight reductions.