Operations

👥 New DCB faces: We have continued to grow – six new team members joined DCB in 2023. All positions were successfully filled!

✅ Fully certified: The certification of the relevant processes for the DCB Management System according to ISO 9001 has been successfully renewed.

⛑️ Safety first: Studies were successfully conducted at the facility. There were no safety-related incidents.

Innovation & Business Development

🌐 Global Impact: Our team evaluated over 300 ideas, proposals, and applications, propelling the global innovation ecosystem forward. We identified and supported several dozen projects and startups, providing them with unparalleled expertise, access to our extensive network, cutting-edge facilities, and crucial funding.

🏆 DCB Open Innovation Challenge 2023: The DCB Open Innovation Challenge once again emerged as a beacon of success, attracting 66 applications from 23 different countries. Six exceptional projects from Ireland, France, Switzerland, South Africa, the US, and the UK took center stage, culminating in a thrilling Award Night attended by 270 enthusiasts from around the globe. We were thrilled to announce the winners of 2023 – Katharine Barnard-Kelly PhD with Spotlight-AQ in the category Digital Diabetes and Greta Preatoni with MYNERVA in Diabetes Devices.

🤝 Patient-Centric Partnership: In a groundbreaking move, we collaborated with the University Clinic for Diabetology, Endocrinology, Nutritional Medicine & Metabolism (UDEM) in Berne for a Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) event, aiming to enhance patient engagement in clinical trials and research. By joining forces, we are catalysing a paradigm shift in healthcare innovation, placing patients at the heart of progress!

🎓 Educational Endeavors: Empowering the next generation of innovators, we organised a Stanford Bio design summer school in collaboration with ZHAW Zurich University of Applied Sciences. Students from diverse fields converged to explore and embrace innovation in diabetes technology, fostering a collaborative spirit that will undoubtedly shape the future of healthcare.

👥 Team Expansion: Adding to our strength, we’re thrilled to announce the growth of our team by welcoming two exceptional new colleagues, Ema Grabenweger and Hanne Ballhausen. Their passion and expertise amplify our commitment to driving innovation, making DCB’s Innovation Unit an even more dynamic hub of creativity.

Communications

👋 Growing our community: We’ve exceeded 3,000 (almost 3,500!) followers on LinkedIn and 500 followers on Instagram in 2023. We’re so excited our community is ever-growing and appreciate every single one of you, joining us on our journey of making life better for people with diabetes!

🗣️ Valuing Lived Experience: The people living with diabetes are at the core of all that we do at DCB. In 2023, we renamed our “Patient Leaders” to “Lived Experience Panel” to reflect this significance and help bring an end to diabetes stigma. We are so grateful for our continually growing community of Lived Experience Experts – currently 17 people in 14 different countries all over the world!

🔁 Team Switch: Former Digital Channels Manager Greta Ehlers moved on to the Business Development Team and handed over her legacy to Svea Krutisch, new Digital Communications Specialist. Greta continues to support the team in Corporate Design and Branding and we’re so happy to be bringing you the latest DCB news with joint forces!

Projects

💸 1st crowdfunding initiative successfully launched: The first project for the DCB crowdfunding initiative has been identified and coordinated. As the platform of choice, wemakeit.com took the lead. The first crowdfunding goal was achieved, and the learnings will be incorporated into the next iteration of the crowdfunding approach – you can still donate to the current one for the People’s Diabetes Foundation-Belize until Christmas!

📋 Expanding the “Diabetes Technology Report” to Switzerland: To gain a deeper understanding of current best practices, technology maturity levels, and unmet needs, the “DT-Report” team conducts a comprehensive survey annually. Diabetologists, people with diabetes (PwD), and diabetes nurses are given the opportunity to share their experiences with diabetes technology. The DCB team co-created the 2023 survey and initiated an outreach campaign across various channels to engage as many participants as possible in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The results will be meticulously analysed and shared with the community and can serve as a reliable foundation for future DCB activities.

📲 QARBS app successfully developed and merged with SNAQ: After two years of dedicated work and a lot of learnings, the DCB team together with Comerge AG as software developers we were able to file a product to the notified body, which fulfills the requirements of the applicable standards of medical device development and software development. In October, QARBS was successfully merged with SNAQ AG to continue its successful story with joint forces. The project started in early 2021 with the goal of developing an app that automatically calculates carbohydrates of a meal. The result must be as accurate to become the basis for the calculation of an insulin bolus dosing.

🎟️ The organisation of various local events at DCB has contributed to gaining more visibility in Switzerland and emphasising our ambition to raise awareness for our daily work.

Clinical & Data

🩸 Menstrual cycle project: On December 14, Tidepool and DCB launched the menstrual cycle project. The aim of this research collaboration project is to collect data on diabetes management among menstruating people with type 1 diabetes to evaluate changes in insulin sensitivity across the menstrual cycle.

🔬 Clinical Study VAARA successfully conducted: In collaboration with the University Clinic for Diabetology, Endocrinology, Nutritional Medicine & Metabolism (UDEM) in Berne, the study was the first clinical study to estimate associations between volatile organic compounds (VOCs) measured by the Sokru device prototype and blood glucose. The study results will support further development of the device prototype and has given some insights into the dynamics of VOCs during changes in blood glucose.

🔎 Clinical Study FibreGum on-going: Under the supervision of our assistant professor Maria Luisa Balmer , the FibreGum study is running at the Children Clinic Berne, assessing the effect of an additive in a chewing gum on body weight loss. 28 adolescents and young adults have been included so far.

📥 Clinical Study SPN-005 Started for Recruitment: At the University Clinic for Diabetology, Endocrinology, Nutritional Medicine & Metabolism (UDEM) in Berne, the study will assess the feasibility of a noninvasive medical device, developed by the company Spiden, to detect, and track glucose changes transcutaneously in defined and dynamic states of glycemia. 20 T1D adults will be included over 6 months.

🤝 Preparation for a Clinical Study with BOYDSense: The study will examine associations between glycaemic states such as stable (hypoglycaemia, euglycemia, and hyperglycaemia), increasing, and decreasing blood glucose, and the VOC (volatile organic compound) spectra in the breath measured with a Gas Chromatograph-Ion Mobility Spectrometer (GC-IMS) device as a reference and a portable device prototype to measure VOCs. The device prototype has been developed by BOYDSense with the purpose to allow blood glucose monitoring through non-invasive breath analyses.

📖 Contribution to publications: “Comparator Data Characteristics and Testing Procedures for the Clinical Performance Evaluation of Continuous Glucose Monitoring Systems” was accepted for publication in December 2023 in Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics.

🔒 Penetration Test Successful: In October 2023, we ran a penetration attempt on our IT environment, which was successful in the sense that the professional hackers could not enter the system.

Thank you, dear readers for your loyalty and interest throughout the year! We will continue to provide you with new series, inside stories and regular updates in 2024. All the best and happy holidays!🎄 🎆

Every year, we celebrate #DiabetesAwarenessMonth in November, with #WorldDiabetesDay on 14 November, the birthday of Sir Frederick Banting, who co-discovered insulin along with Charles Best in 1922.

This year, we had quite a few activities all throughout this significant month – from crowning the winners of our Open Innovation Challenge to launching our first crowdfunding campaign, renaming our Lived Experience Panel and far beyond. Read all about it here!

(Re-)Introducing our Lived Experience Panel

At DCB, people living with diabetes are at the core of all that we do. We highly value our experts living with diabetes and are committed to ending diabetes stigma in society, research and innovation. Because of this, we took Diabetes Awareness Month as an opportunity to rename our former “Patient Leaders”, initiated in 2021, to “Lived Experience Panel”! People living with diabetes are much more than just “patients” to us and we want to reflect this in the language we use:

LinkedIn Announcement

Our community is very important to us and we want to ensure that everything we do is person-centered and user-focused. Because of this, we took Diabetes Awareness Month as an opportunity to shine a spotlight on our Lived Experience Experts and ask them for their opinions and experiences:

What do you wish more people knew about life with diabetes?

If you could wish for a new product on the market, what would it be?

Why is it so important to end diabetes stigma?

Open Innovation Challenge

Our Open Innovation Challenge and the Start-Up Night on 9 November were at the core of our activities during Diabetes Awareness Month. We kicked the month off with our Innovation Bootcamp in the Swiss Alps and celebrated this year’s finalists and winners in Berne! You can read all about this year’s challenge in our last newsletter and in case you missed it, watch the highlight clip of our big Start-Up Night here:

Crowdfunding

During the Start-Up Night, we not only announced the winners of the Open Innovation Challenge – we also had some other exciting news: our first crowdfunding campaign was launched!

Until Christmas, you can still donate to it – all profits go to the People’s Diabetes Foundation-Belize. With only a small amount of money, you can make a big impact on the lives of people living with diabetes in Belize. The money will be used for life-saving diabetes supplies and will support the educational work of PDF-Belize, working hard to improve life with diabetes and remove the stigma around it:

Donate now and make a difference for people living with diabetes in Belize: https://wemakeit.com/projects/diabetes-supply-for-belize

WHO Global Diabetes Compact Forum

Just in time for Diabetes Awareness Month, we joined the World Health Organization Global Diabetes Compact Forum! On 2 November, the 5th meeting of the WHO Global Diabetes Compact Forum kicked off and Derek Brandt introduced us as a new member. We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration – to make life better for people living with diabetes worldwide.

DT Report (German)

This year, we joined the German DT-Report – an annual report covering attitudes about diabetes technology. The survey is available for both people living with diabetes and doctors from the field. If you are from Switzerland, Austria or Germany, please consider participating to make a contribution to research:

DT Report (German)

To round up our activities of Diabetes Awareness Month, we want to point the spotlight back to the activities of our Lived Experience Experts, continuously advocating for a better life with diabetes in their free time:

• Lucía Feito Allonca is developing a Spanish-speaking international diabetes space, sharing news and information regarding projects, congresses, technologies, opportunities and much more: glucomundo.com
• Tinotenda Dzikiti is hosting a well-known diabetes advocacy podcast. In the name of community and inclusion, it was recently wrapped up under the name “Diabetic Mogul Podcast” and is being revamped as “Global Diabetes Insights” for 2024: LinkedIn announcement
• Leon Tribe is hosting a blog with accurate, impartial information for people with diabetes: https://practicaldiabetic.com/
• Crystal Diaz is the advocacy chair of Subtle Asian Diabetics, an online advocacy group for Asians with all types of diabetes to come together and encourage one another. Follow them on Instagram @subtleasiandiabetics and Facebook @subtleasiandiabetics!

Want to connect with them? Please have a look at our full list of Lived Experience Experts – continuously expanding: https://www.dcberne.com/en/community/

What a successful Diabetes Awareness Month it was – definitely one for the books! Thanks so much for reading and we’ll provide you with the next episode of this series soon.

This edition was authored by Svea Krutisch, Digital Communications Specialist at DCB.