One hundred years ago today on 11th January 1922, Leonard Thompson, a 14-year-old boy dying from type 1 diabetes, became the first person to receive an injection of insulin. One hundred years on, we are still not very far along in understanding the pancreas and how its performance can sometimes be damaged, reduced or can fail completely.
On 31st December 2013, aged 11, my partner’s daughter was rushed into hospital in a coma and diagnosed with total pancreas failure. She has spent 8 years of her life as a type 1 diabetic. She relies on companies like Team Consulting and the pharmaceutical development world to produce diagnostic and drug delivery devices to keep her alive and more importantly to lead a fairly normal life.
The reality is still that her condition requires constant attention of some kind or another. She still needs to regularly prick her fingers and feed her sensor blood, her body worn pump is not without its quirks and certainly not infallible. Her tummy is like a pin cushion, having to change cannula sites weekly, sometimes twice weekly.
I am proud to be in the medical device industry developing devices like these to improve the quality of life for people on long-term medication, but I would rather see a cure for the condition than an effective remedy.
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