Apple still has a long way to go before it adds no-prick blood glucose monitors to its wearables, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman reported Sunday. Gurman said Apple “still needs to perfect the algorithms and on-board sensors” found in its prototypes before even hoping to build them into a Watch. It also needs to shrink the monitor to fit into something as small as a wrist wearable. According to Gurman, this will take “another three to seven years at least.”
That’s a bit longer than the “within a few years” Gurman got from anonymous sources last month. At the time, E5—Apple’s name for its not-so-secret built-in glucose monitor project—was said to be making some impressive progress. After hitting a series of “major milestones” and building a proof-of-concept, the company was allegedly peering at glucose-monitoring Apple Watches on the horizon.
As disappointing as this update is for Apple users who might benefit from a Watch-integrated glucose monitor, it isn’t surprising. Apple has been working on this tech for over 12 years, and it only recently developed a large prototype that would need to sit atop a table. There’s no getting around the fact that the hardware involved in a new feature will need to be small enough to pack inside the device—without, it’s worth mentioning, sacrificing the efficacy of other, unrelated features.
Once Apple gets to that point, it’ll need to overcome the additional hurdle of regulatory approval. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates the sale of all medical devices, from at-home pregnancy tests to implantable pacemakers. Before Apple can advertise glucose-monitoring Watch integrations, it must prove that its sensors can safely and reliably obtain accurate readings.
Approximately one in 10 Americans must regularly check their blood glucose levels to mitigate the effects of Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes. Though this is typically done through test strips (which require finger pricks) or implant-based continuous glucose monitors, these options are inconvenient and expensive. An Apple watch glucose monitor would simplify care for millions more people and potentially help stave off Type 2 diabetes onset by warning non-diabetic users when their glucose levels get too high.
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