Smart insulin pen wins Red Dot Design Award

Cambridge Consultants has won a Red Dot Design Award for its KiCoPen smart insulin pen concept

The KiCoPen captures the exact insulin dose delivered and wirelessly transmits the information to an associated smartphone app.

Via energy harvesting the action of removing the injector cap powers the device instead of a battery.

Cambridge Consultants said that eliminating the battery in KiCoPen means the injector can be more reliable, manufacturing and assembly effort is reduced, and the device can have a lower environmental footprint.

The associated app gathers data on blood glucose levels, activity and food consumption, and integrates it with insulin dosage. Local and cloud-based analytics then turns the data into real-time actionable insights.

KiCoPen was up against nearly 5,000 entries from 63 countries in the design concept category of the Red Dot Design Awards.

KiCoPen team leader Vaishali Kamat, head of digital health at Cambridge Consultants, said: “The ‘Red Dot’ is renowned internationally as one of the most sought-after quality marks for excellent design so winning is a testament to the world-class expertise of our product designers.

“The user is always at the heart of our medical device developments – from understanding their unmet needs at the outset through to delivering a user experience that is second to none.

“When it comes to the new generation of digital products, that user-centred design thinking includes working out what information is needed and how it is displayed to make it easy to understand, making apps simple to use, and creating solutions that people want to use.”