Category: News

A breath of fresh air – How interactive technology could transform the patient experience in intensive care

September 24th 2018 4 min read

24 September 2018 – A doctor’s experience of dealing with acute trauma on the battlefield is being used to help improve the lives of critically ill civilian patients in intensive care units (ICUs). Dr Charlotte Small and the critical care research team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB) in the UK are working with technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) on a novel approach to the complex task of weaning recovering patients off ventilators.

Millions of people are admitted to ICUs around the world each year – with the majority recovering and eventually returning home. But discharge from the ICU is often not the end of the story – many patients experience significant and persistent physical, psychological or social problems. One key contributor to these issues can be the process of weaning patients off ventilator support after an extended period of chronic critical illness.

The weaning process involves various regimens of progressive reduction in mechanical support – analogous to athletic or resistance training. But, unlike athletic training, the ICU process is out of the control of patients – who may also be disorientated, confused and suffering short-term memory loss. As a result, they can be prone to distress or panic when breathing support is partially or temporarily withdrawn. As well as contributing to psychological trauma, this can lead to extended ICU stays and poorer long-term outcomes.

Now Dr Small and CDP are harnessing interactive technology in a bid to make the process more patient friendly. With funding from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), they are creating a ‘digital liberation from ventilation’ (DELVE) system to give patients easy-to-understand information on a screen about their breathing performance – both real time and historical – and so engage them in the weaning process. The dashboard will also enable clinicians to see at a glance a patient’s breathing performance and improve their understanding of an individual’s progress – mechanical ventilator devices currently provide no easy way of viewing historical patient data, so doctors usually piece together data from multiple sources such as vital signs monitors and clinician notes.

Loss of muscle mass whilst on mechanical ventilation is another significant challenge to patient recovery. Patients typically undergo physiotherapy sessions to rebuild body strength as soon as they are medically stable enough on the ICU. The dashboard could include a gamification element to make breathing exercises more interesting and enable patients to do them on their own – speeding up the process of building up their diaphragm muscles and relearning how to breathe for themselves.

“This novel approach has the potential to improve the patient experience – and patient outcomes – whilst preserving precious healthcare resources,” said Matt Brady, partner and head of medical therapy systems at CDP. “It’s a fantastic example of what can be achieved when human factors, design and user experience expertise are combined with electronic and software skills in a cost-effective way for the benefit of the patient and the healthcare system.”

Dr Small works in anaesthesia and pain medicine at the QEHB. Her previous role as an anaesthetic trainee in the Royal Air Force led her to undertake research and quality improvement work into the management of acute trauma-related pain. She is the chief investigator for a programme of work at the NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre investigating how interactive technology could benefit the experience and performance of patients during early rehabilitation in ICUs – which includes a feasibility study of the DELVE system.

“This exciting programme of work has huge potential for patients and their loved ones,” said Dr Small. “By improving understanding of the process of recovery from critical illness – and combining that with the knowledge gained from our research – we aim to enhance clinician decision making and prediction of recovery pathways. Working with the CDP development team – with its understanding of the technical aspects, as well as patient and clinician perspectives – has been crucial to bringing our ideas to life.”

The NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre funding the project is a partnership between the NIHR, the Ministry of Defence, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (which runs the QEHB) and the University of Birmingham. The initiative brings both military and civilian trauma surgeons and scientists together to share advanced clinical practice on the battlefield and innovation in medical research to benefit all trauma patients in the NHS at an early stage of injury.

Notes for editors
Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: cambridgededev.wpenginepowered.com.

The National Institute for Health Research: improving the health and wealth of the nation through research. Established by the Department of Health and Social Care, the NIHR funds high-quality research to improve health; trains and supports health researchers; provides world-class research facilities; works with the life-sciences industry and charities to benefit all; involves patients and the public at every step. For more information, visit: www.nihr.ac.uk

The NIHR Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre is a national centre for trauma research, transferring innovation used in the treatment of injured military personnel to improve outcomes for all patients. It brings together the pioneering advances in surgery and infection control made by military and civilian scientists and medics working together. Launched in January 2011, the national trauma research centre will share its discoveries with the wider NHS to support delivery of excellence in a complex area of acute care. Based at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham (QEHB), the centre harnesses expertise from the Ministry of Defence, the University of Birmingham and the QEHB and has been funded over five years with a total investment of £15 million investment. For more information, visit: www.srmrc.nihr.ac.uk

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk

CesarLastra

International mission to share innovation insights

July 13th 2018 1 min read

Innovation leaders from technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) have just returned from a week-long trip to China where they were invited to share their expertise in using breakthrough technology to tackle real-life issues.

They were in Shanghai for the inauguration of the Shanghai International Energy Innovation Centre and to launch a report on open innovation in collaboration with non-profit organisation SHEnergy and Professor Alan Barrell, entrepreneur in residence at the Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning in Cambridge.

“In China there is no shortage of advanced technology – however, in order to really impact their bottom line and improve people’s lives, it requires an application that is based on real needs and problems worth solving,” said Cesar Lastra, consumer insight and innovation leader at CDP. “The message they were able to take away from us – and that we hope to continue to develop with them – is that true innovation happens at the intersection of consumers, technology and business.

“We also addressed the somewhat misunderstood topic of intellectual property (IP) and the perceived copycat effect in China. Part of what we do at CDP when exploring commercial opportunities and innovation strategies is to conduct IP landscaping and technology road mapping up front – before going down the path of extensive product development. That way we can reassure our clients that we are co-developing viable, protectable technology and designs from initial prototype through to launch and beyond.”

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A new era for CDP: Cambridge Design Partnership becomes an employee-owned company for next phase of growth

May 21st 2018 3 min read

21 May 2018 – Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has become a fully employee-owned company as it embarks on the next stage of its evolution and growth. An employee ownership trust has been set up to hold the company’s shares on behalf of its staff.

“We believe this is a great opportunity for CDP to accelerate our mission to become a world-leading innovator, with the company’s most important asset – its staff – at the centre of our strategy,” said CDP founding partners Mike Cane, Mike Beadman and Matt Schumann. “It means we can continue to grow without the involvement of external shareholders, so we can maintain full control over the direction of the business and our creative culture.”

The CDP leadership team of 10 partners will continue to manage the company and the staff will have a say in the company’s future through an elected employee council. As an employee-owned company, CDP joins the ranks of organisations such as John Lewis, which is probably the most well-known – and the UK’s largest – employee-owned business.

“We have been very successful as an owner-managed company but we believe that – to achieve our ambitious goals – we need a structure that is not only scalable but ensures our talented staff have a direct stake in the success of the business,” said Mike Cane. “Following a major strategy review last year, we realised that our team wanted to be more directly involved in the CDP story – so we decided to break away from the standard company structure.”

Earlier this year, CDP was named one of the top companies in the world-leading Cambridge technology cluster – winning the high growth award in the Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards 2018. Since it was founded by three engineers 22 years ago, the company has grown to around 120 scientists, engineers, researchers and designers in Toft near Cambridge, UK, and Palo Alto in California, US.

“Employee ownership through an employee ownership trust provides us with a stable and equitable structure that has the flexibility to scale and adapt to whatever the future brings,” said Mike Beadman. “It neatly gets around many of the unintended consequences that come with other employee ownership models. It is fundamentally more democratic and inclusive – values that resonate with the CDP creative culture.”

Over the last three years, CDP has expanded its capabilities significantly to make it a ‘one-stop shop’ for businesses in the healthcare and consumer sectors that need to innovate and launch their next-generation products quickly. While its strength has traditionally been in technology and engineering design, it now also has strong teams working at the front end of innovation – helping clients optimise their innovation plans – and at the back end, where its manufacturing engineering group sets up new processes and multinational supply chains.

“Partnership has always been in our name – and now it means even more,” said Matt Schumann. “Every member of staff, in every interaction with our customers, will be fully invested in the success of their project. Working together, with our goals aligned, we believe is the best environment for innovation to occur.”

Notes for editors

Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk

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CDP wins business excellence award

March 23rd 2018 1 min read

Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has been named one of the top companies in the world-leading Cambridge technology cluster. It has won the high growth award in the Cambridge News Business Excellence Awards 2018.

The judges heard how the company – founded by three engineers more than 20 years ago – has now grown to around 120 researchers, designers, scientists and engineers. In the last financial year, sales increased by more than 35% – with particular growth in US sales – and the firm has an increasing number of loyal clients who choose it as their innovation partner year after year.

Over the last three years, CDP has expanded its capabilities significantly to make it a ‘one-stop shop’ for businesses that need to innovate and launch their next-generation products quickly. While its strength has traditionally been in engineering development and product design, it now also has strong teams working at the front end of innovation – helping clients optimise their innovation plans – and at the back end, where its manufacturing engineering group sets up new processes and multinational supply chains.

The company undertakes fast-track, customer-focused innovation programmes using its proven ‘Potential Realised’ framework to optimise the return on clients’ investment in innovation.

CDP founder Mike Cane said: “Our success is the result of a lot of hard work and commitment from our talented team and loyal clients – and winning this title is a fitting recognition of their achievements.

“Our clients range from small, innovative start-ups to giant multinational organisations. And our product developments range from connected medical devices and diagnostic equipment to consumer products and manufacturing solutions. But, at the end of the day, we believe product development is all about people.

“What sets us apart is our focus on the user – we work on the basis of ‘market pull’ rather than the usual ‘technology push’. We never lose sight of the fact that products are for customers – the technology is only there to make something do what it’s supposed to do at the right cost. We work from the customer’s perspective. Our aim is to significantly improve people’s lives through innovation.”

How AI can help improve sports performance

March 12th 2018 3 min read

Jason Mashinchi 

I wonder how many athletes in the Winter Olympics had used artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their performance. AI is when a computer is programmed to mimic human cognitive functions such as learning and problem solving. With wearables like Fitbit abounding in the sports market, AI is beginning to play a key role in allowing these devices to provide a ‘quantified self’ – useful statistics derived from performance measurements that allow athletes to improve their training, and therefore their performance.

Let’s take tennis as an example – often athletes will need a coach to give them direction on how to improve their form, and to spot mistakes and inefficiencies while watching a game. Coaches typically set targets and goals by making judgements based on what they can see. Wearables can provide insightful data on previously undetectable metrics to coaches, through readings such as heart rate and movement. Wearables contain electronic sensors, such as accelerometers or gyroscopes, which provide continuous movement information that shows variations when different events occur. For example, a wrist-worn device will read different movement patterns for a forehand shot, compared with a backhand equivalent.

Readings from wearables will be affected by many factors, such as the way the person is holding a racket, what serve or shot they’re doing or even how the device is being worn. That’s just a fraction of the many things that could change, and these variables all need to be considered to find out how the measurements match up to events.

In conventional approaches, computers use signal processing to find events in the incoming readings. The computer software needs to be programmed with various filters and transformations to apply to these readings, and these are used to detect specific, consistent events that may be occurring. However, with sporting data, it’s hard to predict what each event looks like because events rarely involve the exact same movement as there are so many factors that could change. This reduces the accuracy of the device, which isn’t ideal.

Machine learning – an area of AI – can help. Machine learning allows software to learn from incoming readings and to identify factors that affect the measurements. This allows software to decide which events are occurring in given measurements and to get better with more data over time. For example, with tennis data, machine learning can detect similar movement patterns and group similar data together – in effect, it creates movement classifications by itself for events like serves, and shots (e.g. forehand, backhand, volleys). AI lets us process vast amounts of statistical data with less effort than ever – and can even identify factors affecting sports performance that are impossible for us humans to detect.

Although machine learning can be effective, it brings its own set of challenges. AI can never be 100% accurate without vast quantities of training data. We’re talking about hundreds of thousands of readings – and it’s not easy to collect this much data manually! Luckily, it’s possible to start with a smaller amount of data and gradually train the machine learning models with more data over time to improve accuracy.

By processing wearable sensor readings using AI, valuable metrics that were previously difficult to gather can be obtained. By combining this data with powerful smartphone apps, athletes can be provided with actionable insights and coaching, which in turn improves performance and helps athletes to achieve their best.

Our in-house software experts here at Cambridge Design Partnership have delivered successful implementations of AI to many of our clients. Just think what AI could do for your business…

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WORLD-CLASS INSPIRATION Launch of new Pyrex range of cookware designed by CDP and International Cookware

February 28th 2018 3 min read

28 February 2018 – Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has joined forces with International Cookware to help shape a new generation of Pyrex dish designs that can take centre stage on the table. The new Inspiration ovenware range pushes the boundaries of material and manufacturing technology, with aesthetic influence drawn from traditional handcrafted finishes and bold geometric detailing.

It’s the second successful design collaboration between the two companies – following on from the launch of the centenary Pyrex ovenware range Optimum in 2015. Pyrex is renowned as a pioneer in premium glass cookware. But recent research highlighted that the very qualities which made the brand so dependable in the kitchen – functionality, practicality and resilience – were discouraging customers from presenting the cookware on the dining table.

The collaborative research uncovered crucial insight which offered a new perspective on the functional and aesthetic design. The new range also had to deliver consumer value and appeal across a variety of sizes, while adhering to challenging industrial borosilicate glass manufacturing requirements.

“The result is an addition to Pyrex’s market-leading range of products that can take centre stage on any dinner table,” said Ben Strutt, a partner at CDP. “Presentation of food is central to the dining experience and the ideologies of being a good host – and the Inspiration range delivers new levels of beauty and refinement without sacrificing legendary Pyrex performance and durability.

“From front-end consumer research through to industrial design and design for manufacturing, our comprehensive understanding of the whole process enabled us to propose credible design concepts which helped Pyrex push the boundaries of what is possible with the material. We are uniquely placed to tackle this kind of challenge as we can draw on expertise from different disciplines, as well as our experience of working within very specific client marketing and manufacturing requirements.”

The research for the new range highlighted an opportunity for an ‘occasional’ piece of cookware that combined practicality and style, would not look out of place with personal crockery set choices, and would support a range of food types and occasions. Ease of cleaning was critical, as was the depth of the cookware to prevent food overflowing in the oven.

“The design of the handles – often utilitarian in nature – required a fundamentally different approach to meet the aspirational project objectives,” said Ben. “The final design has integrated handles that blend into the sides of the dish, appearing as attractive features when not in use.” The new design is manufactured in tempered borosilicate glass, which can withstand temperature variations of up to 220°C – so the Inspiration range can go straight from the fridge to the oven.

“Working with CDP has helped us balance the complex list of demands and create an attractive new range of cookware that is equally at home on the table or in the oven,” said Xavier Frappier, senior product manager at Pyrex licensee International Cookware. “The new Inspiration range combines traditional values with cutting-edge manufacturing and design to give our customers the very best in elegant but practical cookware for any occasion.”


Notes for editors

Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

Pyrex is a trademark of Corning Incorporated, used under licence by International Cookware. The iconic cookware brand has offered families new ideas to help prepare, cook and serve at the table since 1915. Combining tradition and innovation, the brand now includes a wide range of cookware, available in several materials, shapes, designs and colours. International Cookware has its own borosilicate glass manufacturing plant in Châteauroux, France, and employs more than 500 people. For more information, visit: www.pyrex.eu

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk

TOP DESIGN HONOUR

TOP DESIGN HONOUR – CDP wins a prestigious Good Design award for innovative product design

February 12th 2018 2 min read

12 February 2018 – Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has been awarded one of the top honours in the design world. It has won a Good Design award for its work with DKB Household on the Zyliss Control knife range – a breakthrough in knife design that improves the user experience and reduces the spread of bacteria.

The prestigious Good Design awards aim to recognise the most innovative and cutting-edge industrial, product and graphic designs produced around the world. They are run by The Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design, in co-operation with the European Centre for Architecture, Art, Design and Urban Studies. The organisers say the emphasis is on quality design of the highest form, function and aesthetics – a standard beyond ordinary consumer products and graphics.

“Since 1950, Good Design has become an internationally acknowledged benchmark and symbol of outstanding design that serves as a beacon for design-interested audiences in our global economies,” said Christian Narkiewicz-Laine, museum president at The Chicago Athenaeum.

Challenging convention, the Zyliss Control knives were designed to meet the needs of the consumer – not just the professional chef. They were the result of extensive consumer-focused research into how people actually use kitchen knives in their home, as well as their concerns and aspirations. The research was conducted by a multidisciplinary CDP team, using the powerful ‘jobs-to-be-done’ innovation perspective to provide a solid evidence base for inclusion of a range of functional knife and storage attributes.

The knives support many different grip styles comfortably and have a unique indentation on top of the blade to give more confidence and control for detailed preparation work. They are manufactured from high-grade German stainless steel and feature antibacterial agents in the handle which kill 99.9% of all germs. They are also dishwasher safe – and the range includes two sizes of wood storage blocks, both featuring antibacterial removable sheaths that are also dishwasher safe.

“This Good Design award is a fantastic endorsement of the unique skills of our world-class team,” said Andrew Wynne, senior design consultant at CDP. “We know our clients appreciate those skills – as three-quarters of our new clients last year came from recommendations. But it is an honour to also have this prestigious independent recognition of our design expertise. Our approach combines front-end consumer research with the very latest technology. In the case of the Zyliss Control knives, this enabled us to prioritise user needs in the product’s design – completely differentiating the Zyliss brand from others in the marketplace.”

Notes for editors
Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk

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THE WHOLE TRUTH Miniaturised technology from CDP uncovers the secrets of the perfect toothbrush

January 25th 2018 3 min read

25 January 2018 – Innovation from technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) is set to transform mass-market toothbrush design. The ‘TruthBrush’ technology turns the humble manual toothbrush into a sophisticated monitoring device that can capture a variety of information about how people are actually brushing their teeth.

Using miniaturised sensor technology, coupled with sophisticated algorithms, the TruthBrush can reveal information ranging from how long someone spends brushing their teeth and at what times of day through to technique data, such as the ratio of time spent cleaning the top versus the bottom teeth.

This information is already becoming available in the electric toothbrush market – via smart apps connecting to the electronics already present in an electric brush. But developing an electric toothbrush is an expensive process, the information gathered is only partially relevant to manual toothbrush users – and the vast majority of consumers, particularly those in the developing world, still use manual toothbrushes.

What’s different about the TruthBrush is that it makes it possible for any toothbrush company to gather that same data at a fraction of the cost – and use the information to bring innovation to every bathroom at an affordable price. It could mean, for example, a better toothbrush handle for elderly people struggling with dexterity issues – or a brush that lights up and buzzes when a child has brushed their teeth for the required amount of time.

“This is primarily a service to help clients work out where innovation opportunities lie,” said George Bostock, oral care leader at CDP. “It’s a practical alternative to investing millions of pounds developing a fully connected brush with a whole host of features that consumers don’t actually need or want. A manual toothbrush in the right hands is as good as an expensive electric toothbrush. The challenge is getting people to clean their teeth properly with whatever device they use.”

The TruthBrush highlights how people are using even a basic manual toothbrush – and gives food for thought when it comes to improvements in design. It might be that a twisted handle shape – or a different neck design – could make it easier to clean the difficult-to-reach teeth at the back of the mouth, for example.

“The oral care environment is incredibly complex,” said George. “Even the most basic toothbrush usually has 500+ bristles, and everyone brushes their teeth slightly differently – so mathematically modelling how bristles move around the mouth is very difficult. Add to that the fact that the substance you are trying to remove – plaque – is a biosystem of different components, all clinging to your teeth, so it’s not just a simple question of how much force you need to use to remove it. This complexity makes it hard to validate test methods – whereas the TruthBrush can uncover vital information from behind the bathroom door, without affecting the consumer’s daily routine.”

The TruthBrush uses CDP’s unique user insight service diialog™, which translates a stream of data from miniature sensors into valuable information to help clients make more informed investment decisions. As diialog uses the latest in ultra-low-cost sensors, it means the size of user trials can far exceed those of established ethnographic methods.

The CDP team will be demonstrating the TruthBrush technology – along with other innovations such as the novel Klarus drug delivery system – at the MD&M West event, 6-8 February, at the Anaheim Convention Center in California, stand 1425.

Notes for editors

Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk

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New phase of growth in drug delivery

November 7th 2017 1 min read

Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has announced the appointment of drug delivery industry veteran Bastiaan de Leeuw as it embarks on a new phase of growth in the sector. As head of drug delivery business development, he will be driving CDP’s expansion into new markets around the world.

Bastiaan will be working alongside CDP partner and head of drug delivery Uri Baruch, who has overseen huge growth in the sector over the past five years. Uri’s drug delivery team has delivered a variety of projects – ranging from an award-winning needle safety device and an emergency auto-injector to pen injector packaging designs for drug delivery devices and inhalation products – including successful regulatory submissions in both the US and Europe.

“I am delighted to welcome Bastiaan to our growing world-class team,” said Uri. “He has a wealth of knowledge and experience of the industry that will be invaluable as we continue our record-breaking growth.”

In his long and diverse career, Bastiaan has held a string of senior posts in organisations such as Cambridge device design and development company Oval Medical Technologies and medical device development and manufacturing firm Bespak. He has particular expertise in combination products – but has also spent five years working in diagnostics as CEO of molecular diagnostic research and service company NovioGendix, now part of multinational healthcare company MDxHealth. He has a degree in biopharmaceutical sciences from Leiden University in the Netherlands.

“I am excited to be joining the CDP team at such an interesting time, as the drug delivery group continues its phenomenal growth,” said Bastiaan. “I am looking forward to bringing together the varied strands of my healthcare career to help clients around the world translate opportunities and challenges into real-life drug delivery devices for the benefit of patients.”

Unique diialog service to unlock patient-friendly drug delivery devices

Unique dialog service to unlock patient-friendly drug delivery devices

November 6th 2017 3 min read

6 November 2017 – A new approach to drug delivery device development is set to transform the experience of patients who face the challenge of regularly injecting themselves as part of their treatment for chronic diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Technology and product design firm Cambridge Design Partnership (CDP) has applied its unique user insight service diialog™ to an auto-injector to unlock the secrets of creating a truly patient-friendly drug delivery device.

The diialog service throws a spotlight on two measures that suggest how easy or difficult a patient finds using their auto-injector. The first of these is ‘dwell time’ – how long a patient hesitates before actually injecting themselves once they’ve prepared the device. The second measure is ‘cap removal force’, which in the worst-case scenario can lead to a patient accidentally stabbing themselves with the needle during their preparations for injection.

“Our aim is to put the patient at the centre of drug delivery device development,” said Tom Lawrie-Fussey, healthcare digital strategist at CDP. “But to do that you need detailed, reliable information about how a patient uses their auto-injector in the privacy of their own home. A patient might tell their doctor they never miss a dose of their medication – but in reality they might skip some of their injections because they are too awkward to administer.

“Drug delivery device developers are required to meet regulatory human factors requirements. But accurate information about usability and the whole patient experience is also crucial if a great idea is to go beyond those requirements and translate into a successful product that is patient friendly and delivers improved health outcomes. Yet trial users of a new device often tell you what they think you want to hear. With the help of diialog, you can discover what really happens – whether the device is used correctly and the drug is stored at the correct temperature, for example, or whether an elderly patient struggles to remove the cap.”

The miniature sensing technology used by diialog is small enough to fit inside an existing clinical trial injector and can monitor a range of key factors such as orientation, preparation sequence and injection technique. Another crucial element is the sophisticated algorithms that analyse the data and translate it into an accurate picture of how a device is being used in the real world. The technology is even programmed to ignore ‘false positives’, such as movements due to patients carrying their device around in their bag.

“With diialog we can translate a stream of data into valuable information for our clients to enable them to make more informed investment decisions,” said Tom. “It complements their existing research techniques and can help minimise the risks, especially for pharma companies facing the challenge of migrating to device development. As well as auto-injectors, diialog could be used in the development of any other drug delivery devices as well as over-the-counter diagnostic products such as pregnancy tests – and it has already been successfully deployed in the cosmetics and sports industries.

“Another benefit of diialog is that it can provide a practical stepping stone for companies that are new to connected device development. Our clients are able to quickly assess the return on investment for their own specific product requirements – and hence de-risk their connected device development pathway. A diialog user trial enables them to select the sensors, on-board processing and data connectivity features that generate the most value – and avoid investing in technology options that ultimately won’t give them sufficient patient adoption.”

The CDP team will be demonstrating its diialog technology – and showcasing its novel Klarus drug delivery system – at PDA’s Universe of Pre-filled Syringes and Injection Devices event, 7-8 November, at the Austria Center Vienna, stand X92. CDP partner Jez Clements will also be presenting the diialog story and its latest results alongside Markus Bauss, managing director of SHL Connect, during the pre-conference workshop on Connected Health & Drug Delivery on 6 November. They will be exploring how the technology can enable even deeper understanding of human factors in design.

Notes for editors
Cambridge Design Partnership is a technology and product design partner focused on helping clients grow their businesses. Some of the world’s largest companies trust CDP to develop their most important innovations. Located in both Cambridge (UK) and in Palo Alto, California (US), CDP specialises in the consumer products, healthcare, energy and industrial equipment markets. Its multidisciplinary staff have the expert knowledge to identify opportunities and tackle the challenges its clients face. For more information, visit: www.cambridge-design.co.uk

For further information, contact the marketing team:
+44 (0)1223 264428
marketing@cambridge-design.co.uk