Apple enters POCT glucose monitoring market

POCT is a clinical test that is performed next to the patient and sampled on-site for immediate analysis. Simplicity and convenience are always the most important features of POCT.

A few days ago, Apple announced its progress in the field of blood glucose monitoring, and it made the global IVD giants feel anxious and face great pressure to compete in the field of POCT.

Apart from gestational diabetes, other types of diabetes are incurable; blood glucose monitoring, becomes necessary to control diabetes. Although blood glucose monitoring cannot directly alter insulin secretion and blood glucose concentration, it allows patients to accurately understand the changes in their blood glucose, which facilitates disease management, treatment, and effectively reduces the risk of complications. According to British Medical Journal, controlling blood glucose levels in patients through the results of blood glucose monitoring can significantly reduce the incidence of diabetes complications such as vascular disease.

Currently, there are two types of blood glucose monitoring instruments, namely BGM (fingertip blood test) and CGM (continuous glucose monitoring). BGM technology has developed maturely and become the mainstream of the market. However, due to the disadvantages such as invasive and inability to implement monitoring, it is likely to be eliminated by CGM in the future, and CGM is also the CGM market that Apple is entering. The goal of the project, code named "E5," is to successfully measure glucose levels in the human body without piercing the skin to extract blood, and the technology is expected to be used in Apple Watch products. Apple Watch as a smart wearable product with a wide audience. 2022, Apple Watch shipments grew 17% year-over-year and exceeded 50 million units for the first time.

Bloomberg reports that Apple is advancing the development of a non-invasive continuous glucose monitoring program and has made significant progress. Once the news came out, the shares of overseas players in the blood glucose monitoring industry, such as Dekang and Sinocare(China) crashed in a flash.

Apple's technology is still in the "proof of concept" stage. Blood glucose monitoring products are a high technology barrier product, requiring a long time of technology and data accumulation. But in any case, this is a wakeup call to the medical giants who mainly focus on home monitoring products. The rivalry in the medical industry will not be limited to the medical field in the future.