Montmed
Bridging the Gap between Science and Behavior in Diabetes Care

Where and how you inject insulin may be as important as what you inject’ is a popular saying in the diabetes space.

In fact, the repeated injection of insulin at the same location leads to a complication known as lipohypertrophy, an accumulation of fat underneath the skin surface, present in up to 64 percent of insulin users, resulting in erratic insulin absorption and wreaking havoc on glycemic control. Ensuring insulin users adopt a healthy injection site rotation routine is the number one recommendation to prevent and also fix this problem. Although it seems like an easy thing to do, the reality shows a different picture, as data shows that more than half of insulin users only use one site to inject their insulin. This is where Montmed contributes to the diabetes care space.

100 years following the discovery of insulin by Banting and Best, Canada-based Montmed is aiming to transform the utility of insulin pen needles from sole delivery of insulin to a clinical tool that simply and seamlessly facilitates adherence to healthy injection site rotation for better diabetes outcomes. Its tool to enable such: the patented Sitesmart pen needles system.

Montmed’s Sitesmart package contains 100 pen needles distinctively marked with four colors (4X25), along with a body map association tool labeled directly on the packaging and a web app linked via a QR code. The user creates his personalized structured injection site rotation plan by matching each color of the pen needle to an injection site. Then, every time the user picks a random pen needle, they simply inject it in the area corresponding to the color of the pen needle. By doing do, Sitesmart bridges the gap between education and behavior.

“Large studies have shown that insulin users who properly rotate their sites and avoid lipohypertrophy have on average 0.55 percent lower A1C, 6X less unexplained lows, 7X less glycemic variability, and need less insulin.

Ensuring insulin users can easily follow a structured injection site rotation routine is an extremely simple yet powerful clinical intervention that represents a significant opportunity for the diabetes industry, starting with insulin manufacturers themselves,”says Amir Farzam, president and CEO of Montmed.

Sitesmart was recently evaluated in a randomized clinical trial. The study, published in 2020 in the Journal of Diabetes Therapy, showed that the sole dispensing of Sitesmart by a retail pharmacist delivered a 134 percent increase in the likelihood of improving site rotation over conventional pen needles. Additionally, users stated that Sitesmart made it easier for them to rotate their sites and pharmacists stated it made is easier for them to discuss site rotation with patients.

Sitesmart is currently available in Canada through a distribution agreement with Roche Diabetes Care. Moving forward, Montmed seeks to expand distribution outside of Canada by securing the right strategic partner that shares the same vision of addressing this unmet medical need. To this end, the company will initiate its US 510k process in Q1 2023.

Montmed’s leadership team has a strong track record in diabetes-related product development, commercialization, and partnerships in North America and globally. Montmed’s president and CEO, Amir Farzam, along with Montmed board member, Hormoz Kaykhazadeh, co-founded Fair Teb, a commercial diabetes distribution organization, as well as a notfor- profit organization, Gabric, recognized as the best practice of diabetes education in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by the World Health Organization (WHO). Montmed’s Head of Business Development, Martin Lafontaine, and Chairman of the board, Dr. Claude Piché, also have strong track records in the field of diabetes innovation. Piché and Lafontaine were, respectively, CEO and CCO at Locemia Solutions, the company that developed nasal glucagon, now known as BAQSIMI^®, whose rights were sold to Eli Lilly.