Amrita, Wipro win award for novel diabetes solution

KOCHI: Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and IT major Wipro have jointly won the Aegis Graham Bell Award 2017 in the ‘Innovation in mHealth’ category for a first-of-its-kind and cost-effective diabetes management solution they jointly developed. The Graham Bell Award is among one of the world’s topmost technology awards to honour innovation in IT and communications.The end-to-end mobile health solution for diabetics uses a novel insulin pump and glucose-monitoring system, integrated with a cloud-based monitoring app for more efficient and effective diabetes care.

The project is supported by the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) of the Government of India. This diabetes management solution enables patient compliance and significantly improve the quality of life at a very low cost, even for patients living in the remotest areas of the country.
“The development of this novel diabetes management solution underscores the potential of what can be achieved in the healthcare sector through unique partnerships,” said Dr Bipin Nair, dean of Amrita School of Biotechnology, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham.

“We are grateful for the support provided by BIRAC. We are delighted to be recognised for our efforts to address the growing issue of diabetes in India and help patients avail treatment at an affordable cost. Diabetes cannot be cured, only managed. We have developed two affordable devices to better manage diabetes: an automated insulin pump and a glucose-monitoring system.”

Wipro, which is working on making both the devices Bluetooth-capable, has already developed an easy-to-use mobile app for these devices. Patient data from the devices will be transferred by the app to a digital backbone that includes a dedicated server and cloud. These, in turn, will be connected round-the-clock with a diabetes helpline, endocrinologists, NGOs, the patient’s family and so on.The project team led by Dr Bipin Nair included researchers from Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s Coimbatore campus Satheesh Babu, John Stanley and K Guruvayurappan, as well as Dr Harish Kumar and the team from the Endocrinology Department of Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences.