Israeli tech startup DreaMed teams up with Yale to use AI in monitoring insulin and glucose levels in children with Type 1 diabetes

There are over 31 million people with Type 1 diabetes around the world. In the U.S. alone, approximately 1. 25 million Americans have Type 1 diabetes. By 2050, 5 million people are estimated to be diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. An estimated 40,000 people are diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes each year. And most of them are struggling to keep up their glucose levels stable.

Enter DreaMed Diabetes, a HaMerkaz, Israel-based medical tech startup that provides digital solutions for diabetes treatment plans, providing recommendations on insulin delivery to diabetes patients-based glucose-level monitoring data.

Today, DreaMed Diabetes announced it is partnering with Yale New Haven Health System to use artificial intelligence (AI) in monitoring insulin and glucose levels in children with Type 1 diabetes. Underaged diabetics often find it hard to inject the right doses of insulin to rein in their blood glucose. AI could provide a speedy and simple means of tabulating glucose changes and calculating the necessary dosage.

After taking part in proving the clinical benefit of using AI-based decision support tools, as was recently published in Nature Medicine, Yale New Haven Health System and DreaMed Diabetes will explore what it would take to adopt such a solution into a real-world health system.

While Type 2 diabetes patients account for the vast majority of cases, Type 1, or juvenile diabetes, is thought to affect around 600,000 children worldwide. It is a condition in which the body cannot produce insulin, requiring people with the condition to take artificial insulin to stay alive.

DreaMed’s dose-optimization software will be tested on 100 diabetic children at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, said Jennifer Sherr, a pediatric endocrinologist there. As the first-of-its-kind FDA-cleared solution, DreaMed has quickly become a critical telemedicine tool for the immune-compromised diabetes population. With this new partnership, Yale will now evaluate workflow, satisfaction, and financial aspects of Health Systems implementing such models.

As part of the test, the subjects will use the system at least every three weeks, “and then we’ll see them in clinical follow-up at three months, and again at six months” to assess whether their overall control had improved, she said, noting the follow-ups could be virtual. The software uses patient data to create recommendations for insulin dose changes if required.

“Instead of (guidance becoming available in) 20, 30 minutes, it will all end up being five minutes,” said DreaMed co-founder and CEO Eran Atlas.

Founded in 2014 by Aviel Fogel, Dr. Revital Nimri, Eran Atlas, Ido Muller, Moshe Phillip, and Shahar Miller, DreaMed offers AI solutions and personalized support for optimized insulin therapy. DreaMed commercialized the first artificial pancreas technology which was published in the NEJM. Ever since DreaMed Diabetes has been vigorously working on decision support tools in the diabetes management space and became the first and only company in the world to receive FDA clearance for a decision support system using data from CGM/SMBG and insulin pump in 2019.

“It’s an exciting time for solutions aimed at managing diabetes, and remote protocols could create a tectonic shift in how we manage the condition,” says Jennifer Sherr, MD, Ph.D., an attending pediatric endocrinologist at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital and associate professor of pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine.

Sherr continued, “While persons with diabetes are generating a wealth of diabetes data, the interpretation of this data and optimization of the treatment regimen is often relegated to quarterly in-clinic visits. As insulin needs constantly evolve for youth with diabetes the use of more frequent dose adjustments may help more youth attain targeted glycemia. We identified DreaMed as the most promising platform to improve patient care while holding the potential to also streamline provider workflow and we look forward to seeing how a patient’s life can change for the better over the space of the six-month evaluation period.”

“We’re honored to take part in a collaboration with such a highly regarded health system like Yale New Haven,” says Eran Atlas, Co-Founder and CEO of DreaMed Diabetes. “Having our software utilized as a strategy that allows for both virtual and in-person visits is a necessity in the era of COVID-19 and the future of care, and its use over the span of six months will fully demonstrate how our platform manages the challenges while positively affecting a person’s quality of life.”

Below is a video overview of DreaMed Advisor. DreaMed Advisor is a decision-support tool powered by AI and Big Data analytics for real-time personalized medicine, quickly and automatically determining the optimal treatment for maintaining balanced glucose levels.