 I got an assignment from Mack Lurker, Dorothy, asking if I would go to the tandem booth and I'm here with Ben Marr to talk about their diabetes pumps and we're going to learn a little bit about how these work and maybe answer a couple of Dorothy's questions. I've got them up on my phone, so welcome to the show, Ben. Thank you very much for having me. All right, so first of all, what is an insulin pump? What does that do? An insulin pump is essentially, as added, delivers insulin to those who need it, and those are with diabetes. Okay, so you've got a tiny little unit in your hand, let's hold it up for Steve. He's got a little unit in his hand, it's got a display on it. It's smaller, like half the size of a Deca card, so I'd say maybe, and it's got a display showing insulin levels and a bunch of other great metrics, I assume. Yeah, correct. It's actually monitoring your continuous glucose, monitors your blood sugars, and it's showing you the history of that and it's showing you the history of the adjustments that the pump's been making over time to your insulin to keep you in range. From my limited understanding, I've been taught by Dorothy, a continuous glucose monitor is something that you stick to your arm, for example, a little patch. I can show you one right here. This is called a Freestyle Libre II Plus Continuous Glucose Monitor by Abbott. It basically looks like an air tag stuck to his arm. Yeah, correct, but it's a lot more than that. It actually has a sensor just underneath your skin. It measures the sugar levels in your blood and it measures that every one minute to see how your insulin levels need to be. This was a huge advantage over pricking your finger years ago, not that long ago, like a few minutes ago. Not that long ago, and many people still do that today, and that's unfortunately, you'd have to prick your finger sometimes up to 20 times a day to check your blood sugar levels and give yourself insulin accordingly. Dorothy's taught me is that it's not just how high your blood sugar goes, but maintaining an even keel is what you need. We're going to call it a CGM, Continuous Glucose Monitor. Having that is really important, but now what's important about tandem is that you work with, you guys don't make CGMs, but you work with other manufacturers. Yeah, correct, and today we just announced, as I said, the Abbott integration, which is the first integration with the Freestyle Libre sensor, but we actually are the first pump to be able to connect to up to three different CGMs, as we call them, meaning that you can use our pump, and no matter what different CGM you use as well. Oh, okay, that's a big advantage. So, the product in your hand, what's the name of that? This is the T-Slim X2 insulin pump. Okay, and now you've got a smaller device here, can you show us that on screen? Now this looks like, boy, I don't know, that's smaller than a cigarette lighter, but it's got an interesting looking little plastic probe sticking out of the top. What is that? That's actually the cartridge on there. So this is tandem Moby, our insulin pump that we're just in the process of releasing, and this is actually the cartridge that you see. So you actually have the insulin in there, and that connects to an infusion set, which connects to your body, which actually delivers insulin into your body every five minutes based on your CGM readings. Oh, so that's much, much smaller than the one you've got in your hand. So is that in development right now? No, that's actually just recently been cleared by the FDA, and we're in the process of actually releasing that to the public starting this year. Very good, very good. Now Dorothy asked me to ask you, will you be able to update the firmware on the Moby? Yes, absolutely. So that's one of the unique things about tandem pumps, is you can actually update the software. So today, as I mentioned, you update your software and you can start to use the Abbott sensor. Both of our pumps will be completely software updateable, and the unique thing about this one is there's no ports on there, so it's completely wirelessly updated via the compatible mobile app. Oh, OK, so that's why it doesn't have a display on it or anything? Correct, that's why we can make it so small, because it's controlled by a mobile app. OK, wireless, but it's still connected to you. It's still connected to you when you need it for the insulin. Until they can magically transport the insulin into you, I guess that's going to be the case. So the other question she asked was with the continuous glucose monitors, you have to replace those every three days. So it's a big advantage you're not pricking your finger, I'll get this right, pricking your finger 20 times a day, but now every three days that's still annoying. Is there any progress on making those last longer? Yeah, for sure, absolutely. So yeah, I think the great thing about insulin pumps is it saves you about over 2,000 injections of insulin you'd have to do in a year. I forgot about that part. Yeah, that's a lot. But we are absolutely working on what we call longer wear time. So moving from three days, ultimately up to seven days as well, that means you essentially halve the amount of times you have to change your insulin cycle. I would assume that has to do with infection and things like that, living it in too long? Yeah, there's a lot of technology to make sure, because your body essentially doesn't want you to be opening up your skin every few days, so it actually tries to resolve that. So we're working on the technology means that it doesn't get as irritated. All right, and she said the final question is, when will we get an artificial pancreas? So you don't have to do any of this. It's all done in a full closed-loop system. Yeah, well, essentially that's the holy grail of what we're working on with insulin pumps. I'm very, very hopeful that we'll be able to come out with that soon and hopefully fear-free. Someday, yeah, yeah, yeah. So is this just for type 1 diabetes or is it type 2 diabetes? So type 1 diabetes is not your behavior caused this. You're just, you're born with that or you get this, right? Yep, right now our algorithm, our automated delivery since it is indicated for type 1 only, but we are actually working on making that available with a regulatory body for type 2 diabetes as well. Very good, well, I thank you for your work at keeping my friend Dorothy alive and healthy all these years. Best wishes to Dorothy. Thank you very much.