Disposable cartridge-based blood glucose design and development
This cartridge-based meter was developed for Hypoguard (now part of arkray) after they saw they needed to step aside from the incremental improvement of meter and develop a product that delivered real benefit to the user. The Newtek meter held 100 biosensors allowing the user to perform 100 tests before the meter was recycled. It enabled users with poor dexterity to simply rotate a handle to present a bionsensor to perform a test, rather than try to remove a biosensor from a vial and then insert it into a meter. It was a very technically challenging project. The biosensors had to be protected from moisture, so the meter was moulded in Polypropylene to provide an effective moisture barrier for them.
A simple elastomer coated plastic hinged door allowed the sensors to be released and the exit was plugged again. Moulded desiccant within the meter absorbed any residual moisture. Extensive testing was carried out using data loggers and an environmental chamber to enable accelerated testing to be carried out.
The product was manufactured in the UK, with the technical assembly defined fully in ProENGINEER. (Developed whilst employed at Pearson Matthews).
NEWTEK – TRIAL ASSEMBLY BUILD & TESTING
Newtek blood glucose meter trial assembly during the pre-production phase of development. Meters were built using components moulded from prototype tooling.
NEWTEK – STRIP DISPENSING MECHANISM
The dispensing mechanism in the glucose meter uses a constant force strip to move the strip stack down in the cartridge, presenting a new strip for each test.
NEWTEK – CARTRIDGE RATCHET MECHANISM
The ratchet mechanism inside the 100-strip cartridge ensures the strips remain in a stack. If the meter is dropped, the ratchet locks into the cartridge body.
NEWTEK – AUTOMATIC STRIP PRESENTATION
The test strip is automatically presented to the user and the blood glucose test can be performed. This avoid any strip handling - a problem for users with poor dexterity.