Oh come on. If you were involved you know that's not why IBG meters have not yet hit the market.
The first company certified to manufacture ran out of money and went bankrupt before they could bring their very complex and expensive product to market. They were purchased by another German company who promise a late 2014 product for select markets - but very expensive, so still not ready for the mass market.
These technologies take time - especially when we have a tried and true method in place today.
Get it wrong, patients die, companies get sued and destroyed.
It's not a conspiracy...
Actually, no, not what happened (and I never stated it was a "conspiracy", it's business, money, plain and simple)
Numerous companies were testing such systems, non-invasive. Medtronic, a prime supplier of insulin pumps, bought a few companies/patents in such a system with the notion they would further the studies with a final product in the near future.
Having used a pump (mostly for wireless BG monitoring as I swim and sweat a great deal when lifting, I've been diabetic since 12, now 37, my A1C's average 5.5-5.8), I still need to test throughout the day to monitor the pumps accuracy. Needless to say it's within the pumps range -/+ 5-10. During early testing in Rochester, NY at the URMC where one such study was occurring back in the late 90's, the units we used (as we were told later) had an accuracy level of -/+ 5-10 compared to OneTouch/etc.
I just lost of my father on January 16th at 70, a type 1 diabetic since 6. He lost his legs in 2002, and was sent home in hospice care as his pumping function in his heart was 14%. He surprised his doctors, including surgeon Peter McKnight, and came back. Sadly, even under good care, his hands turned to bone, suffered phantom pains for over a decade. His left eye was removed due to infection last September, and his right was going. He fell out of his wheelchair and broke his hip due to low bone density from 12+ years being confined to a wheelchair. He came back from rehab, but he was never the same. Two days after returning from my mothers sisters funeral, he suffered a severe heart attack and died a few days later at Strong Memorial. I've taken excellent care of myself, learned what not to do, was pre-med until studying Industrial Organizational Psychology at Columbia, and follow advancements in many area's, not just diabetes, and participate as much as I can in advancing the cause for a cure and better treatment(s).
Furthermore, if a company developed a device that measured at least as accurately a finger sticks meters, was non-invasive, and without side effects, and got approval from the FDA, they would stand to gain billions more in revenue than what they were getting from test strip sales. There are at least dozens of companies all making basically the same test strips, don't you think that they would have a vested interest in making much of their competition utterly obsolete overnight?
Certainly, however OneTouch and Bayer (Contour) currently dominate the market in sales (
why do you think so many doctors have "free" meters? they lock the patients into test strip sales, which is why the meters are free or dirt cheap and pushed heavily through pharm reps). Pharm companies makes millions if not billions off diabetic supplies - insulin, syringes, test strips, meters, pumps, then medications that no matter how well you take care of yourself juvenile diabetics face complications such as glaucoma, diabetic neuropathy (Lyrica, gamma neuronotin), depression (a common issue type 1 diabetics may face as recent studies have shown, even in healthy juvenile diabetics, long term plaque on the brain results which - in much more severe frequency - is a common cause for alzheimer's), loss of eyesight, ulcers, heart conditions. A box of 50 BG test strips from OneTouch Ultra test strips retails $49.99 (if you Google, the prices listed are after discount if you qualify). I test ~20 times a day, even with my Medtronic pump. Even if expensive meters come around, insurance companies have to approve of them for coverage such as they do for insulin pumps. I'm certain most won't at first, and if they do, that much more money lost on the sales of test strips needed for traditional/current invasive meters. Expensive non-invasive meters wouldn't make up for the long term loss invested in test strip sales, they'd be shooting themselves in the foot.
Am I stating it's a conspiracy? No, of course not! It's business. It's money. They're in the business of making money. Just like oil and gas, if people don't need your product long term, that's billions of profits gone. I cannot tell you how dismayed I was at learning through friends who work in R&D for such companies as Lilly, Merck, J&J as researchers, project managers - the frustrations they face in petitioning boards for funds in various research proposals.
We have phones, devices that fit in the palm of your hand, that once took up a desk not more than a decade ago yet we can't develop a non-invasive BG meter? We have a 64-bit device that's more powerful than the i386 systems in the 90's, 20 years ago, 10 years ago even. You're kidding yourself if you truly believe the excuses leveled.
