WORCESTER, MA – Grove Instruments Inc., a medical device company based in Worcester, MA, developing the world’s first noninvasive glucometer today announced that the company has achieved a landmark clinical milestone known internally as “durable calibration.” “This achievement was the last hurdle on the critical path to commercialization of our first product,” explained Arthur Combs, Grove’s CEO. “We have already identified our initial target markets and designed product concepts to address the needs of those markets. Durable Calibration makes them all possible,” continued Combs.
“Grove’s noninvasive glucose meters require personalization, i.e. a calibration process because of the unique optical properties of the monitored part (earlobe or fingertip)” explains Combs. “What we have been marching towards is a way to make that calibration process minimal and have it last as long as possible without any change in accuracy,” emphasized Combs, “and the latest data indicate we will be able to do that,” he concluded.
Marie Schiller, the Company’s Commercialization Advisor, said that “this is a key value driver for the Company. Our target product concepts are focused on unmet needs in important market segments, and these latest results enable any of them to be Grove’s first commercial product,” she explained.
Market research (Health Advances, 2013) shows that 75% of patients with Type 2 diabetes who do not take insulin never test their blood sugar – yet the ravages of hyperglycemia progress unabated. The same study showed that 21% of Type 1diabetes patients who inject insulin every day never test their blood sugar. “It’s clear that at both ends of the diabetes treatment spectrum currently available technology for self-monitoring of blood glucose is not meeting the needs of many diabetes patients,” stated Combs.
Ms. Schiller emphasized what Grove is trying to accomplish with noninvasive monitoring solutions: “We are going to transform the way that all people with diabetes monitor glucose levels in order to ease the daily burden of the disease while improving outcomes.”
About Grove Instruments, Inc.
Grove Instruments, Inc. is a privately held pre-market medical device company developing the world’s first noninvasive glucometer that meets or exceeds the accuracy of currently marketed products. Grove’s patented technology is based on the seminal concept of the Optical BridgeTM and is unique among all NIR spectroscopic approaches to noninvasive blood glucose determination. The Company has been recognized for its innovation, technology development and clinical results on 10 separate occasions by the NIH NIDDK with funded SBIR Grants. Grove has also been recognized by the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center with an Accelerator Award – one of only 4 recipients out of all Boston-area life sciences companies applying in that round. In 2012, Grove received its 9th issued US patent and has subsequently filed several additional new patent applications and numerous disclosures. For more information see www.groveinstruments.com or contact Arthur Combs (314 341 3444 mobile).