More than a year after Medtronic released its MiniMed Connect system, which connects an insulin pump and affiliated CGM to a smartphone app, the company has launched an Android version of the MiniMed Connect app.

"For people with diabetes, constantly monitoring blood sugar levels can be cumbersome and anything but discreet," Annette Brüls, president of the diabetes service and solutions business unit at Medtronic Diabetes, wrote in a blog post. "That’s why we created the MiniMed Connect mobile application, originally available on iOS. Now we are introducing MiniMed Connect for the Android operating system –the first and only product that enables people with diabetes to discreetly see real-time glucose level on their Android smartphones."

While the app works on a number of Android phones, the company worked closely with Samsung to test the experience on Galaxy phones.

"What’s most exciting about our work with Medtronic and the launch of the MiniMed Connect app for Android is what it represents," Samsung Chief Medical Officer David Rhew wrote in a blog post. "Collaboration between medical device manufacturers and technology companies are going to define the future of the medical space — for patients and providers. With apps and mobile devices that are both personal and powerful, medical monitoring and care can be made simpler and easier for everyone."

The MiniMed Connect device is a keychain-sized device that users of the Medtronic MiniMed insulin pump can purchase. It takes data from the pump and affiliated CGM and sends it to either a mobile app or a web platform where users and their care providers, can access it. It also automatically sends a text alert to loved ones when glucose levels go too high or too low, or when an alarm on the pump isn’t cleared. It received FDA clearance in June 2015.

Medtronic and Samsung announced a partnership around the same time. According to a statement at the time, the companies are working together to "develop a range of future solutions that will enhance the way people with diabetes live their lives, from remotely viewing diabetes data to ultimately integrating mobile and wearable devices into diabetes management systems." 

Brüls shared data from an analysis of 2,800 users of MiniMed Connect that showed app use led to two fewer severe low blood sugar events per year and 41 fewer severe high blood sugar events per year. Two-thirds of the users in that analysis also reported that because of the MiniMed Connect system, they stayed in the healthy blood sugar range more often than before they used it.