The time-consuming-awaited Malus pumila'esque t:slim insulin ticker from Tandem bicycle Diabetes Maintenance is finally direct FDA! This is the new full-featured pump that looks wish a mini iPhone, with the first-ever colour contact screen for insulin dosing. When IT hits the market in middle-2012, IT will also be the smallest insulin pump system available, "sorted care a acknowledgment card and slim as a smart phone."

Tandem is understandably gratifying that t:reduce is incomparable of the get-go insulin pumps to be cleared under the Food and Drug Administration's new Infusion Pump Improvement First step, which addresses safety problems and "design deficiencies" in current pump systems.

We're understandably delighted to see that Tandem is using the tagline "Design Matters," in its promotional materials and talking about how important patient input is to creating a form factor that people tooshie — and want to! — live with. This hails back to our Open Letter to Steve Jobs in 2007 and course the DiabetesMine Design Take exception contest that grew kayoed of our call to action. In fact, Tandem says they interviewed thousands of PWDs (and as wel healthcare professionals) in the pass-up to building this product, "… and the clear subject matter we heard was, 'make it cool and make it unsophisticated to use.  Pass on the States access to the most advanced features without extra effort.'"  Yuppers.

Now, let's talk of the town about the product they've organized…

Yes, IT's a tubed pump, but what makes t:slim different is its consumer-pleasing face and tiny size. It is reportedly 25% slimmer than the Animas Ping and MiniMed Paradigm pumps. And information technology still sports a 300-unit cartridge. Its "vivid color touch screen" lets users scroll and finger-click through settings and commands precisely like you would on an iPhone or iPad.

It also reportedly delivers insulin more accurately, based connected a primary patented "micro-delivery extract method" that allows for much tighter control and monitoring of the add up of graceful flowing out of the heart. (Karmel Allison does a great job of describing the chronicle and details of that technology here.) So you receive more precise dosing and a simpler, more compact car chemical mechanism.

The other element that allows for the tiny size is switch from regular, commercial-sized batteries, even Triple A, to an "eco-friendly rechargeable battery" that's more the sizing of watch batteries. The pump is recharged using a "universal USB cord, like you would a electric cell phone," spokesman Steve Sabicer tells Maine (anyone commemorate him from his previous Book of Job in media relations at Medtronic? Small D-world).

I thought the need to recharge power be a drag, but Steve says people same the "green charm" of recharging, and the battery life can be protracted indefinitely if you "pinch off the tank car" daily. If you father't charge inbetween the least bit, the pump has a 7-day life-time. Charging the t:small's battery from stripped to full takes approximately 2.5 hours, I am told.

Does it come with data management software? Yes, of course. t:slim will plunge with a web-settled program called t:connect, which is PC and Mac congenial. (Execute we hear whooping from the Mackintosh crowd?) All you have to do is plug the pump into your estimator with a USB cable and click "upload." You lav recharge the t:slim pump at the same meter. A nice plus is the fact that t:link up volition support a half-dozen popular glucose meter models, too, including OneTouch, FreeStyle, and Accu-Chek.

So how come you hold out this small-scale guy clipped to, or underneath, your clothes? If it's about design, then it's about how you'll wear it, right? All Steve could tell me at this time is that t:slenderize will come accepted with a close-fitting protective pillowcase, holster, and a screen protector, and that "fashionable cases will be available separately to foregather users inevitably and lifestyles." OK, good to know.

Since the t:slim's non out even, we couldn't get any inside information happening pricing operating theater reimbursement, nor were in that respect any existing users to audience. But Saint Peter the Apostle Nerothin, type 1 PWD, advocate and Iron man triathlete of the radical Insulindependence, was informed to an extensive demo and plenty of "button-ambitious" to search this unexampled merchandise a moment.

"A big feature for Pine Tree State is that it's gonna be tight — because of all my sports," he says. Peter's currently taking a "heart sabbatical" since his Medtronic skint downwardly. Would atomic number 2 go for the t:slim? "I'm thrillful about it because it's something fresh and incomparable. It feels modern and sexy. I switched from a Blackberry bush to an iPhone lately and I've been teased about it ever since. I smel like that's the rather leap we're visual perception with this pump."

"If information technology works too as it looks, information technology'll embody a big success," he says, adding that "kids and adolescents may be Thomas More inclined to use a pump if they're seeing something with this kind of iPhone-ish appeal." True, but the genuinely young'uns will have to await; current FDA clearance is for patients age 12 and over.

Going forward, you can follow t:slim's progress via Tandem's brand new social media presence: @tandemdiabetes, utilization hashtag #tslim, or at www.facebook.com/TandemDiabetesCorp.