Introducing digital connectivity to home infusions
Although the infusion drug delivery sector has been “stagnant – from a technological innovation perspective” during the past few years, Shaul Eitan, CEO of Avoset Health, says the company tackles key unresolved issues with solutions including ‘intuitive’ touch screens embedded to infusion pump devices, which the company brough first to market.
A subsidiary of Eitan Group, Avoset is working on the development of a homecare system, known as AvosetGO, a device where the patient can connect the drug reservoir and push the start button to begin self-administration of the treatment.
The company also plans to launch Sorrel, a wearable injector designed for self-administration that immediately begins infusion once placed on the body.
Both of these solutions can be connected to a mobile application for patients and a dashboard for healthcare professionals to track patient adherence to treatments and enable remote assistance and troubleshooting when necessary.
Highlighting the importance of digital technology in drug delivery solutions, the company’s CEO commented that connectivity is becoming ‘ubiquitous’ across medical devices, bringing a ‘monumental’ impact.
Digitally-enabled self-administration devices are becoming increasingly popular, with technologies being developed in several therapeutic areas including diabetes management, driven by demand for patient-centric approaches.
“Within the infusion market, improved connectivity provides treatment transparency to nurses and technicians allowing them to provide better immediate care to patients,” Eitan stated, explaining the link to data collection and management to facilitate treatment administration.
According to Avoset’s CEO, continuous awareness is ‘crucial’ to providing reliable delivery of fluids and medications during an infusion, preventing infusion-related medication errors.
Moreover, Eitan added that connected devices can potentially relay patient data to hospitals and manufacturers in a continuous manner, allowing manufacturers to evaluate them and generate conclusions, in order to ultimately refine their devices to better suit end-user and patient needs.
Advantages of delivery via infusion
According to Eitan, greater adoption of infusion as a drug delivery method has the potential to address two ‘fundamental concerns’ of the market: large volume injections and patient convenience during self-administration.
“Large volume injections, ranging anywhere from five milliliters to three liters, with the ability to deliver drugs from one cP to 1,000 cP in viscosity, are beginning to integrate into the market,” explained Eitan, adding that, while these larger volume injections can distribute medicine for longer periods of time, they must still maintain the highest levels of accuracy and molecular integrity.
Regarding patient convenience, Eitan said that “the healthcare ecosystem is experiencing an influx of patients suffering from chronic diseases, which require long-term treatment.”
“More advanced and user-friendly drug delivery solutions that are reliable, easy to use, and have very low failure rates will help patients better self-administer medicine to combat these chronic diseases,” he added.
Moreover, the executive predicted that leading technology companies such as Amazon, Google and Apple will begin to aggregate this data to further support patient adherence, once such devices become widely available on the market.
