Greta Ehlers on Diabetes Center Berne and Innovation in Diabetes Technology

A conversation on innovation in diabetes technology with Greta Ehlers, MS, Business Scout at Diabetes Center Berne.

Episode Transcript

David Klonoff (00:15):
Welcome to Diabetes Technology Report.
I'm Dr David Klonoff.
I'm an endocrinologist atSutter Health and UCSF.
We have a very special guesttoday and my fellow moderator,
Dr David Kerr, will introduceher.

David Kerr (00:32):
Well, david, thank you very much, and I'm David
Kerr.
I'm speaking to you from SantaBarbara, california, and I'm
absolutely delighted to welcomeGreta Ehlers from DCB today to
the podcast.
To welcome Greta Ehlers fromDCB today to the podcast.
Greta, how is it you've endedup being interested in diabetes,
diabetes technology and workingfor DCB?

Greta Ehlers (00:54):
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
I think that the story on how Iended up in the diabetes tech
field and how I you know Istarted getting interested in
diabetes technology is quite apersonal one, because when I was
nine years old, I got diagnosedwith type 1 diabetes after a
really nice and painful summerholiday of sleepless and very

(01:19):
thirsty nights, and I didn'tthink much about it back then.
It was 20 years ago.
I think the diabetes managementlooked quite different from
today, but I think that'sprobably where it all started,
back there.
Nine-year-old Greta gettingrushed to the hospital.

David Kerr (01:39):
And how did you end up?
I mean, what happened afterthat career-wise?

Greta Ehlers (01:46):
did you end up?
I mean, what happened afterthat?
Career wise, I think probablythe the personal thing turned
into a more professional thingat some point when I realized I
think I was in my early 20s andI realized I felt quite alone
growing up.
I I knew they have thesediabetes camps.
I never wanted to go.
Every year they asked me at myendocrinologist do you want to
join the summer diabetes camp?

(02:06):
I said no, absolutely not, andthat was fine at the time, but
then later I realized thatthere's nobody really I could
talk to, apart from my doctors,who didn't live with diabetes.
And I set up an Instagram pageon social media to connect with
other people living withdiabetes and I think in the

(02:28):
beginning I was just sharing,you know, my day to day life.
I never really aimed to end upin the diabetes space
professionally, but I exchangedideas with people.
I met a lot of great peoplethrough social media actually,
and that's how I kind of endedup freelancing a bit more on the
diabetes side of things.

David Klonoff (02:51):
Greta, how did you end up working at DCB?

Greta Ehlers (02:55):
I was recruited by a very dear colleague of mine,
mara Inchance, who's still withus at DCB as well.
We were working togetherpreviously.
I was working for her inmarketing and she contacted me
three years ago.
I was just about to write mymaster's thesis in Sweden and
she said there's this amazingorganization, a non-profit,

(03:18):
driving innovation and diabetestechnology, and we think you
would be a really great fit.
Would you be interested inworking for us and moving to
Switzerland?

David Klonoff (03:27):
Greta, in case some of the listeners don't know
what DCB stands for, could youtell us?
But even more importantly, tellus what DCB is, what it's all
about.

Greta Ehlers (03:38):
Absolutely.
Dcb Diabetes Center Burn.
We're a non-profit foundationand our mission and our vision
is to make life with diabeteseasier.
That sounds really simple, butit is really.
You know, it all comes down tothat one thing we want to foster
research on the one side,translate it into solutions out

(04:01):
there on the market that helppeople with diabetes all over
the world.

David Kerr (04:07):
And what sort of thing was the current status
with your organization?
What you're interested in?
What sort of excites you themost at the moment?

Greta Ehlers (04:17):
I think there's so many things and one of the
amazing things for me isobviously that I get to, you
know, experience them, I get totest them, I know, okay, if that
, if we manage to get that outthere, it will help people and I
can really feel how it wouldimprove my life.
And I mean, ai is obviously abig one, but I think the whole
trend into going more into fullyclosed loops is so exciting,

(04:43):
because diabetes managementtakes a lot of time every day.
Managing those chronicconditions takes a lot of time
and I think everything that canreduce these minutes or hours
managing that condition isincredibly, incredibly good.

David Kerr (05:00):
And do companies and entrepreneurs and inventors do
they?
What's the process involved?
Do they contact you?
Do they contact you with theirtechnology or how does it work?

Greta Ehlers (05:11):
Yes, there are a couple of different streams.
So, you know, we're usuallypresent at all the big
conferences EASD, ada, attd andthat's where a lot of
conversations happen, becauseit's easier to connect and just
have a chat A big one andprobably how most startups
contact us is through ourDiabetes DCB Innovation

(05:34):
Challenge, which we've hostedfor four years now actually, and
it's basically a globalcompetition where startups from
all over the world can apply toa platform, and then, you know,
we go through a differentassessment stages and I think
that's probably our biggestfunnel.

David Klonoff (05:54):
Greta, what's it been like for your organization
working with Diabetes TechnologySociety on the Innovation
Challenge this year?

Greta Ehlers (06:03):
For us it's really , really beneficial.
I mean, we saw now, you know,we got 100 idea submissions for
our competition this year.
That also shows that there isstill a great unmet need, even
though a lot has been done.
And DTS has been great,obviously, in helping us spread
the word of their recruitinginnovative solutions from the US

(06:26):
.
We're based in Switzerland andwe really enjoy the
collaboration.
We're excited on where it willlead to in the upcoming months.

David Klonoff (06:34):
Greta, you mentioned that you're working to
make life easier.
What are some of the types ofprojects or programs or
divisions within DCB thatdifferent technologies fall
within?

Greta Ehlers (06:50):
So I think we can kind of split up the different,
you know, research fields andalso startup, startups kind of
categories, and one of them,obviously a big one, is
artificial pancreasTechnological systems that are
composed of glucose sensors andinsulin pumps.
There's a big one in sensing,obviously, glucose sensors.

(07:12):
I think very close to that isall the non-invasive technology,
which is a big trend.
We see a lot of that and Idon't think it's going to
decrease at all.
Non-invasive glucose monitoringsolutions and especially also
with AI coming up digitaldiabetes, smart data, artificial
intelligence apps, algorithms,all of these things and often

(07:37):
they're intertwined, obviously Imean for a fully closed loop.
If we take that as an example.
You need all of that to make itwork.

David Kerr (07:47):
And for people with type 2 diabetes.
Where are the major areas ofinterest?
Again, artificial intelligenceand smartphone applications.

Greta Ehlers (07:56):
Yes, a lot of them are platforms or apps.
I think what we've seen in thelast couple of months also is,
or years, that when you speakabout type 2 diabetes,
behavioural change is quite abig one.
It's very different, I think,from type 1 when we talk about
that, and a lot of that isthrough apps nowadays.

(08:17):
So I think apps and kind ofremote solutions where you maybe
have AI but also, you know,some healthcare professionals
that's that's where we've seenquite a lot.

David Klonoff (08:30):
Greta, does DCB work with any government
agencies or internationalagencies?

Greta Ehlers (08:37):
No, what do you mean with international agencies
?

David Klonoff (08:42):
Do you do projects in conjunction with,
say, world Health Organization,which is also based in
Switzerland, or any otherinternational agencies?

Greta Ehlers (08:52):
We've been engaged in the WHO Global Forum, for
example, and I think we also Imean one of our close partners
are also more research, I thinkbased like the University
Hospital of Bern.
We work really closely withthem on the research side of
things.

David Klonoff (09:12):
Where do you think diabetes will be in 10 or
20 years?
What types of innovations doyou expect to see?

Greta Ehlers (09:21):
I do expect and hope also I think that's fair to
say that it will get lessinvasive.
I know that we have come so farin the past 20 years.
When I think back, I had hugeglass vials and syringes and I
had to inject myself with themseveral times a day and now I
have these pumps, which areobviously helping me quite a lot

(09:43):
.
But I think it could get lessinvasive still.
And I think the fully closedloop, automated insulin delivery
, all of these trends basically,where the end user, the person
with diabetes, has to do lessthan what we have to do now
still, because I think and I saythat quite a lot that the whole

(10:04):
physical aspect is one, but themental aspect of having that on
your mind all the time before Ieat, after I eat.
I know that my pump willcorrect, but I think there's
still room for improvement and Ihope that's what we're going to
see in a couple of years.

David Kerr (10:20):
Greta, if you had one piece of advice for budding
entrepreneurs here in the UnitedStates who want to enter the
diabetes field and build thekiller product, what would be
your piece of fundamental advicefor them?

Greta Ehlers (10:38):
Involve the people you're trying to help.
Involve the people you'retrying to help.
If you trying, if you're tryingto, you know, develop a
diabetes management solution andyou have never, ever recruited
someone with diabetes, you don'thave someone with diabetes on
your board, then it's ultimatelynot gonna work, and I think
that is also.
It's changing now.

(10:58):
But I think people withdiabetes need to be involved in
the decisions and in thedevelopment of medical devices
and all of these solutions whichare designed to, in the end,
benefit the people with diabetes.

David Klonoff (11:11):
Great, I have one last question for you.
What do you see as the role ofDCB to fill a certain need that
wasn't really filled very wellbefore DCB was formed?

Greta Ehlers (11:26):
Our goal, I think, is to be some sort of one-stop
center for diabetes technology.
We have the research, we havethe startup support, we have the
people with diabetes.
We're several team members withdiabetes on our team.
We have our people withdiabetes.
We're several team members withdiabetes on our team.
We have our great network, dts,included.

(11:48):
We work closely with thediabetes venture fund, who's
doing bigger investments afterthey, for example, are in our
challenge, and we're very uniqueon the market with that kind of
infrastructure.
We're very unique on the marketwith that kind of
infrastructure.

David Klonoff (12:03):
Well, greta.
Thank you very much forspeaking with us today.
I hope our listeners learnedsomething about DCB and I think
it's a quite interestingorganization.
I'm happy that WD's TechnologySociety is working closely with
DCB now.
So we will now conclude today'spodcast.

(12:29):
This podcast is available atthe Apple Store, on Spotify and
at the Diabetes TechnologySociety website.
And until our next podcast,thank you, dr Kerr, thank you,
greta, goodbye to everybody.

David Kerr (12:39):
Thank you very much indeed.

Greta Ehlers (12:41):
Thank you.