Asante and Tidepool Announce Data Downloading Partnership for Snap insulin pump

On January 27, Asante and Tidepool announced an insulin pump data downloading partnership for the Snap insulin pump. The agreement marks the first diabetes device company that has officially partnered with Tidepool and the company’s in-development diabetes data platform. Under this partnership, development will begin immediately, and the launch could occur sometime in 2014, assuming the regulatory process goes well. Current Snap clinics will be able to download Snap pump data to the platform, and eventually, Asante hopes to provide a solution to download data at home. 

Tidepool is an up-and-coming non-profit based in Silicon Valley that works to create open-source diabetes management apps. The organization has received lots of attention in the diabetes online community (read our conference pearls to learn more about its work). The Tidepool platform can currently read data from Medtronic and Animas pumps as well as Dexcom and Medtronic CGMs, with more partnerships in the works. The group has two apps in the works – blip and nutshell. We are particularly excited about blip, a web-based program intended to be a “hub for diabetes data.” The application will take data from many devices (meters, CGMs, pumps, and even activity monitors) and aggregate in one dynamic, sleek online interface (see example pictures here). Blip is being tested at UCSF, and Tidepool is in talks with the FDA.

It’s encouraging to see Asante pursuing more partnerships for data downloading, as it just announced an agreement with Glooko last June and worked to allow health care providers to download Snap pump data to Diasend’s web-based data management system. The move to using universal platforms will be beneficial for patients, providers, and companies alike, and hopefully this bold move by Asante will also push other companies to make their data protocols open and available on the Tidepool Platform. –NL/KC