A Medical Device Daily

The American Diabetes Association Research Foundation (Alexandria, Virginia) reported two recipients of a $600,000 grant from Novo Nordisk (Bagsvaerd, Denmark). The gift was presented to the association to support peer-reviewed research on educational and behavioral approaches to diabetes management, with an ultimate goal to improve the health outcomes of people with the disease.

The recipients are Victor Montori, MD, of the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota) and Russell Rothman, MD, of Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee).

Montori will investigate the use of a new tool, called Insulin Choice, designed to help patients and clinicians overcome the barriers that might prevent patients with Type 2 diabetes from considering insulin therapy earlier in the course of treatment.

Rothman's research will address the challenge of patient care for people with diabetes who have low literacy and/ or numeracy (math) skills. These skills are particularly important to patients with diabetes because caring for diabetes often requires the daily application of math and reading skills, such as for counting carbohydrate grams, interpreting blood glucose monitoring, and applying insulin regimens.

Rothman and his team will test the reliability and validity of a new scale, the Diabetes Numeracy Test, to measure diabetes-related math skills in patients within the primary care setting. They also plan to demonstrate that a new educational program that teaches diabetes management skills that compensate for poor reading and math ability among diabetes patients will lead to better diabetes control.

“This is an extremely important and often overlooked area of diabetes research,“ said Don Wagner, chair of the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation. “We look forward to seeing the results of this innovative work, which has the potential to lead to more effective strategies to improve diabetes management, as well as the overall health of people with diabetes.“

Veridex (Warren, New Jersey), a Johnson & Johnson company, reported signing an exclusive, global license agreement with OncoMethylome Sciences (Liege, Belgium) for molecular prostate cancer assays. In addition, both parties have agreed on a development program and an option to license additional assays in the prostate cancer field.

Financial details of the agreement have not been disclosed.

“We are excited by the prospect of applying our expertise in molecular diagnostics to the prostate cancer field,“ said Mark Myslinski, general manager of Veridex. “With the technology licensed from OncoMethylome Sciences, we hope to develop high-value assays that will improve the diagnostic process for physicians and patients.“