Dallas CEO Magazine; Spotlight on Diabetech (& me)
June 28th, 2007 by Kevin
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Kevin McMahon and his company, Diabetech, are to diabetes what Blackberry is to corporate America: easy connections, anytime, anywhere.
In 2001, McMahon’s daughter, Darby, was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at age 2. He spent countless hours asking questions, faxing diet and exercise regimens, and logging blood sugar levels. McMahon, whose career was in technology sales, thought there had to be an easier way. “I’m flying around the world, explaining how to use a wireless PDA…”
… for silly things [like wireless devices... ] to find the closest coffee house or taxi cab [I was part of the team at Compaq that launched the first GSM/GPRS iPAQ PDA] when it hit me that my family had a very real need. Thus, the GlucoMON was born. Since our first trial in 2002, hundreds of patients and their teams have enjoyed real-time glucose alerts, automated reports and mobile diabetes education. Thanks to our mobile diagnostics devices, rules engine technology and social networking protocols, we are delivering lower A1c’s, significantly improved safety and a better quality of life than people not in our trials.
A great surprise for me when reading the article was the quote from one of the members of our advisory board, Fran Dramis, former CIO for BellSouth Corporation. His advice to the readers of this magazine was to make sure you have passion to get you through the times when the world isn’t moving as fast as you would like it to.
“Kevin has that”.
Thanks for the kind words Fran!
Last 5 posts by Kevin
- What's in a name? - March 7th, 2010
- Steve Ponder MD, CDE - Headliner Extraordinaire - January 22nd, 2010
- Fallen Hero Now a Competitor? - January 20th, 2010
- Man Made Barriers to a Man Made Solution - January 16th, 2010
- Healthy Families of South Texas - Launch Day - December 31st, 2009
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:55 am
Congratulations Kevin
You’ve done a great deal in a short amount of time. Good for you, that does show a real passion and drive. So what’s on the plate for the next generation of device?
July 2nd, 2007 at 11:20 am
Thanks Bernard - it doesn’t seem like a short timeframe but for old-timers like you who keep waiting in industry to deliver I guess this is pretty quick.
As for next gen device(s), I published a white paper back in 2003 called something about the “Virtual-Loop…” . I don’t think we’ll control a pump anytime soon and the cost to create a new glucose meter is pretty high. So, I suspect that we’ll continue to focus on making the current stuff better through mobile diagnostic device connectivity, enhancements to our rules engine technology and expanding support for social network interactions.
We’ll be at the CWD conference in a week or so where we’ll launch HomeCheck which enhances the quality and the role of A1c testing in the mix. We will also kick off a new study designed to improve the quality and user experience of cgms.
Also, while the baseline functionality of GlucoMON2 has been previously announced, we still have a few features open on the final device(s). You’ll have to wait to hear about the details as they are ‘top secret’ for now.