Joel S. Douglas is an American patent agent and business executive who pioneered the first alternate-site glucose meter used to treat millions of Americans affected by diabetes. [1] [2]
Douglas graduated from the University of Connecticut with a Bachelor of Science in civil engineering in 1977. He earned his Master's degree in computer science from the University of New Haven in 1982.
As a program manager at Johnson & Johnson's blood glucose monitoring company, LifeScan, Douglas was part of the team that won the Shingo Prize for Operational Excellence in 1995. LifeScan was later purchased for $2.1 billion by the global investment firm Platinum Equity in 2018.
In 1996, Douglas and Karen Drexler co-founded the diabetes monitoring company Amira Medical Inc. The company was a privately held corporation with about 160 employees. In 2001, Amira Medical was acquired by the Swiss healthcare company Roche for an undisclosed sum. [3]
In 2004, the Medical Device and Diagnostic Industry (MD+DI) named Douglas one of the 100 most notable people in the medical device industry. He is the inventor of 103 patents.
Douglas is a University of Connecticut Academy of Distinguished Engineers member and sits on the National Association of Patent Practitioners' board of directors. [4]
Joel is the founder and president of Menlo Park Patents, a patent services provider.
In 2010, Joel and his wife Heidi established the Joel S. and Heidi S. Douglas Engineering Scholarship at the University of Connecticut. [5]
Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Green Oaks, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known drugs; today, it sells medical devices, diagnostics, branded generic medicines and nutritional products. It split off its research-based pharmaceuticals business into AbbVie in 2013.
F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, commonly known as Roche, is a Swiss multinational holding healthcare company that operates worldwide under two divisions: Pharmaceuticals and Diagnostics. Its holding company, Roche Holding AG, has shares listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange. The company headquarters are located in Basel. Roche is the fifth-largest pharmaceutical company in the world by revenue and the leading provider of cancer treatments globally. In 2023, the company’s seat in Forbes Global 2000 was 76.
A glucose meter, also referred to as a "glucometer", is a medical device for determining the approximate concentration of glucose in the blood. It can also be a strip of glucose paper dipped into a substance and measured to the glucose chart. It is a key element of glucose testing, including home blood glucose monitoring (HBGM) performed by people with diabetes mellitus or hypoglycemia. A small drop of blood, obtained from slightly piercing a fingertip with a lancet, is placed on a disposable test strip that the meter reads and uses to calculate the blood glucose level. The meter then displays the level in units of mg/dL or mmol/L.
OneTouch Ultra is a blood glucose monitoring device for people with diabetes that is manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. It is the foundation product for LifeScan's OneTouch Ultra family of blood glucose monitoring systems.
Robert Samuel Langer Jr. FREng is an American biotechnologist, businessman, chemical engineer, chemist, and inventor. He is one of the nine Institute Professors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Alfred E. Mann, also known as Al Mann, was an American physicist, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist.
Bernard Marshall Gordon is an American engineer, inventor, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He is considered "the father of high-speed analog-to-digital conversion".
LifeScan, Inc. is a diagnostic systems manufacturer with products focusing on the diabetes market, specifically blood glucose monitoring systems.
Jonathan Marc Rothberg is an American scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his contributions to next-generation DNA sequencing. He resides in Miami, Florida.
Noninvasive glucose monitoring (NIGM), called Noninvasive continuous glucose monitoring when used as a CGM technique, is the measurement of blood glucose levels, required by people with diabetes to prevent both chronic and acute complications from the disease, without drawing blood, puncturing the skin, or causing pain or trauma. The search for a successful technique began about 1975 and has continued to the present without a clinically or commercially viable product.
Helen Murray Free was an American chemist and educator. She is most known for revolutionizing many in vitro self-testing systems for diabetes and other diseases while working at Miles Laboratories. The tests are still marketed today with blood tests as Ascensia Diabetes Care, and urine tests under Siemens Healthineers. The pioneering dip-and-read strips allowed for testing to be more convenient and efficient and reduced doctors’ and patients’ dependence on laboratories for results as well as the cost of testing.
Elron Electronic Industries Ltd. is an Israeli technology holding company based in Tel Aviv; since 1962 the company has been involved in setting up, funding and developing over 30 companies and is considered one of the foundation stones of the high-tech industry in Israel. The company's sectors of interest include clean technology, software, semiconductors, medical technology, telecommunications, defence and aerospace. Today, the combined annual revenues of the companies established by Elron are approximately $5 billion.
DexCom, Inc. is a company that develops, manufactures, produces, and distributes continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems for diabetes management. It operates internationally with headquarters in San Diego, California, and has manufacturing facilities in Mesa, Arizona and Batu Kawan, Malaysia.
EKF Diagnostics is a publicly listed Healthcare company founded 1990 in Barleben, Germany and currently headquartered in Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Radiometer is a Danish multinational company which develops, manufactures and markets solutions for blood sampling, blood gas analysis, transcutaneous monitoring, immunoassay testing and the related IT management systems. The company was founded in 1935 in Copenhagen, Denmark by Børge Aagaard Nielsen and Carl Schrøder. It has over 3,200 employees and direct representation in more than 32 countries. Corporate headquarters remain in Copenhagen.
Stevanato Group is an Italian multinational company headquartered in Piombino Dese, Padua – Italy. Founded in 1949, it is also active in the glass tube forming technology and inspection systems sector.
Google Contact Lens was a smart contact lens project announced by Google on 16 January 2014. The project aimed to assist people with diabetes by constantly measuring the glucose levels in their tears. The project was being carried out by Verily and as of 2014 was being tested using prototypes. On November 16, 2018, Verily announced it had discontinued the project.
Verily Life Sciences LLC, also known as Verily, is Alphabet Inc.'s research organization devoted to the study of life sciences. The organization was formerly a division of Google X, until August 10, 2015, when Sergey Brin announced that the organization would become an independent subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. with restructuring completed on October 2, 2015. On December 7, 2015, Google Life Sciences was renamed Verily.
A continuous glucose monitor (CGM) is a device used for monitoring blood glucose on a continual basis instead of monitoring glucose levels periodically by drawing a drop of blood from a finger. This is known as continuous glucose monitoring. CGMs are used by people who treat their diabetes with insulin, for example people with type 1 diabetes, type 2 diabetes, or other types of diabetes, such as gestational diabetes.
Ron Zwanziger is an Israeli-American businessman. He is best known for founding and leading the diagnostic test manufacturer Alere.