Diabetes patients in the UK will soon be able to receive smart insulin pens that enable them to self-administer insulin, record dosing information for each injection and communicate data to a smartphone, tablet or other compatible device using NFC.

The UK National Health Service (NHS) is to make the pens available on prescription so patients will no longer need to manually track each individual injection and record the amount of insulin given in each dose.

The NovoPen 6 and NovoPen Echo Plus allow patients to “transfer your insulin dosing information to your preferred diabetes app and easily share it with your healthcare providers,” technology provider Novo Nordisk explains.

“You can bring your pen to the clinic, or if you have a smartphone, tablet, personal computer, blood glucose monitor or another device that supports NFC, you can easily transfer your insulin dosing information from your pen to your device.

“Hold the dose memory of the pen straight against the NFC spot on your device [and] wait while your injection details are automatically transferred to a compatible app.”

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