InPen: A Smart Insulin Pen That Calculates Dosage, Tracks Injections

Companion Medical, a startup out of San Diego, CA, has come up with an insulin pen that also connects to smartphones to help track intake, calculate dosage, and manage how much is in reserve. The InPen uses standard Bluetooth wireless to connect to a smartphone app that handles all the calculations, display of data, and management of reminders.

Automatically calculating dosage and then recording both time and size of dose taken at every injection, the InPen performs many functions of an insulin pump without being an electronic leech stuck to the skin that many find unpleasant or uncomfortable.

It’s important to note that while the recording of the activity of the InPen is high tech, the dosage still has to be dialed in the old-fashioned manual way once the app displays the recommendation. This seems like an important safety precaution since you don’t want a patient needing insulin not being able to select a dosage simply because a phone ran out of power.

According to the company, the InPen was cleared by the FDA last week for marketing in the United States. So certainly the company onto something very interesting here.