Irish medical technology company Medtronic has acquired US-based digital health technology company Klue for an undisclosed sum.
Based in San Jose of California, Klue is involved in the development of an advanced operating system for behaviour change and real-time digital therapeutics.
Klue is focused on behaviour tracking, which can offer real-time insights into when a person is consuming food.
The company’s technology is anticipated to be integrated into the Medtronic Personalised Closed Loop (PCL) insulin pump system, which is currently under development.
Medtronic diabetes group’s advanced insulin management division president Alejandro Galindo said: “Bringing Klue and their unique meal detection capabilities into our organization will accelerate our progress to help people with diabetes live with greater freedom and better health.”
Medtronic has designed the PCL system to automate insulin delivery in a way that is real-time, personalised and adapts to the user, helping to simplify diabetes management for the patient.
The acquisition enables Medtronic to leverage Klue technology to improve the company’s analytics and insights in the smart CGM technology to support people using multiple daily injections (MDI) stay ahead of high and low glucose events.
Klue technology can automatically recognise when a person is eating, as well as how fast and how much that person consumes.
Klue’s fine motor artificial intelligence software can detect meals and provide insights into user eating behaviours
By applying gesture sensing through activity trackers combined with analytics technology, Klue has developed fine motor artificial intelligence software, which holds capacity to detect meals and offer insights into user eating behaviours.
In February this year, PCL secured breakthrough device designation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Recently, Medtronic also acquired Nutrino Health that has expertise in nutrition data science. The nutrition data science will play a significant role in the accelerated development of PCL technology.
Klue and Nutrino Health will help Medtronic to strengthen its capabilities in automation, as well as in the integration of artificial intelligence into diabetes management systems.
Klue CEO and founder Katelijn Vleugels said: “Klue’s truly unique early meal detection technology can help transform diabetes care.
“Joining Medtronic creates a tremendous opportunity to advance diabetes therapies and, together, we will accelerate our shared mission to help people with diabetes live their happiest and healthiest lives.”
In May this year, Medtronic agreed to acquire Titan Spine, a privately-held titanium spine interbody implant and surface technology company.
