Roche agrees to purchase Medingo

Roche is to strengthen its position in the diabetes care market through the acquisition of Medingo, a company working on an innovative new insulin patch pump.

The pharmaceutical company has agreed a deal with Medingo’s current majority stakeholder Elron Electronics which will see the firm become a wholly-owned Roche subsidiary.

This will allow Roche to augment its diabetes care portfolio with Medingo’s new product, which incorporates a convenient semi-disposable insulin dispensing patch and a remote control for discreet delivery.

Although Medingo’s pump has not yet been marketed, production capabilities for the device will be scaled up in the coming months in preparation for a planned global launch in 2012.

Burkhard Piper, head of Roche Diabetes Care, said: “Offering an innovative micro patch pump will bring our competence in the area of integrated insulin delivery systems to a broader range of people with diabetes on insulin therapy.”

Last month, the company purchased assets relating to its NimbleGen microarray workflow from BioMicro Systems, allowing it to produce the devices in-house.