We were honored with a presentation and Q&A session with Ed Damiano, founder and CEO of Beta Bionics, developer of the iLet bionic pancreas, with both the insulin-only model and the dual hormone (insulin and glucagon) model.
Here’s a little bit about Ed: Ever since his now 21-year-old son David developed type 1 diabetes at 11 months of age, Ed Damiano has been committed to creating and integrating closed-loop blood-glucose control technologies with a vision of building a bionic pancreas by the time his son headed off to college.
Beginning in 2005, he and his PhD student, Fi-ras’ El-Khateeb began conducting experiments in diabetic pigs in his laboratory at Boston University testing an early laptop-version of their bionic pancreas system. The project progressed with clinical collaborators at Massachusetts General Hospital to conduct in-patient trials in adults and adolescents with T1D. Over the past five years, his team has conducted outpatient and home-use clinical trials in adults and children with type 1 diabetes, which led to the development of the iLet bionic pancreas system.
In 2015, Ed and his wife, Dr. Toby Milgrome, along with Firas El-Khatib and Ed and Serafina Raskin, founded Beta Bionics, Inc. as a Massachusetts public benefit corporation with the goal of bringing the iLet through final clinical trials, regulatory approval and into the hands of people with type 1 diabetes.
He received his BS in Biomedical Engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) (arch rival to my college, Union College), MS in Mechanical Engineering from Washington University and back to RPI for his Ph.D. in Applied Mechanics. He is professor in the department of biomedical engineering at Boston University.
Read more: Beta Bionics website
It is the better idea. Even if it never gets made, it is clearly a more complete external solution.