Medtronic plc and Novo Nordisk A/S have announced a collaboration that will develop solutions to integrate insulin dosing data from future Novo Nordisk smart insulin pens into Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) devices from Medtronic, such as the GuardianTM Connect system.

People with diabetes spend an average of one hour a day on self-care, amounting to a full two years devoted exclusively to their disease over their lifetime. This new, non-exclusive collaboration reflects both companies'commitment to making diabetes management easier by integrating key health technologies.

"Millions of people living with diabetes work to control their sugar levels and track their insulin injections every day. To help ease the hassle of diabetes management, we are excited to be partnering with Medtronic, the largest medical device company in the world," said Camilla Sylvest, executive vice president, Commercial Strategy & Corporate Affairs, Novo Nordisk. "We now collaborate with all major CGM device producers, which means we can bring the benefits of smart insulin pens to even more people."

"We see incredible power in combining a variety of data points to drive insights that help people living with diabetes make more informed decisions around managing their glucose levels," said Alejandro Galindo, president of the Advanced Insulin Management division within the Diabetes Group at Medtronic. "Our new agreement with Novo Nordisk, the world's largest producer of insulin, will streamline the sharing of two of the most important pieces of information - glucose measurements and insulin dosed. With this, Medtronic can further enhance our market-leading analytics and insights to help ease the burden of diabetes."

By integrating glucose monitoring and insulin dosing data, people with diabetes and their healthcare professionals and caregivers (with permission from the person with diabetes) will be able to automatically track these two important items in a single place, giving people living with diabetes one less thing to think about in the daily management of their condition. Further, being able to view both glucose and insulin data together can facilitate more productive conversations between people and their doctors, enabling more informed decisions on how to better manage glucose levels and increase Time in Range (TIR) - the percentage of time people with diabetes spend in the optimal glycaemic range of 70-180 mg/dL.

Novo Nordisk expects to launch its durable smart insulin pens, NovoPen® 6 and NovoPen Echo® Plus, as well as its disposable, pre-filled injection solution starting in 2020. Once available, smart insulin pens will be compatible with both Android and iOS devices. The Guardian Connect system will be updated as well to integrate data from these Novo Nordisk smart pens.