POINT1 What is pancreas?

The pancreas secretes pancreatic fluid that assists in the digestion of food, insulin that lowers blood glucose level, and glucagon* that raises blood glucose level.

* Glucagon:

Glucose taken into the body is changed to glycogen. Glucagon promotes the degradation of this glycogen and raises the blood glucose level.

POINT2 What is artificial pancreas?

The artificial pancreas STG developed by us has special program to mimic the pancreatic function of the living body and it enables to continuously monitor the blood glucose level and control it to a constant value.
When our body has received serious external damage, such as severe injury or surgery, blood glucose levels rapidly rise and the body goes into a diabetic state. In such cases, this can lead to an increased risk of infection during recovery from an injury or surgery.
Accordingly, medical institutions measure blood glucose periodically and attempt to maintain normal values by manually injecting insulin or glucose.
However, since our body (pancreas) simultaneously tries to control blood glucose at an appropriate level, the levels may become too high (hyperglycemia) or too low (hypoglycemia), which can be potentially dangerous or even fatal. Subsequently, the blood glucose levels can become difficult to control with periodic testing and manual changes to insulin and glucose doses.
As described above, the artificial pancreas serves to always maintain control of blood glucose levels at a suitable value by automatically injecting insulin or glucose during surgery and after surgery. This artificial pancreas, which has been used for over 40 years in the clinical setting with no incidences of hypoglycemia. Moreover, as a result, it is reported to inhibit the development of infectious disease after surgery, etc., and it is contributing to early discharge from the hospital.
Furthermore, we aim to drastically reduce the time that medical and nursing staff spend on blood glucose monitoring and control so that they may focus on other aspects of care and treatment.

POINT3 About the artificial pancreas business

At present, the artificial pancreas made by Nikkiso is the only technology in the world. However, since it is only sold domestically this treatment is limited to Japan.