Abbott has launched FreeStyle and FreeStyle Lite blood glucose test strips at the 45th Annual Meeting of the German Diabetes Society (DDG).
Abbott said that the FreeStyle line of test strips features a new ZipWik design tapered test strip that offers a better blood glucose testing experience. The new test strips are designed to ensure faster blood application, to reduce the number of error messages and wasted test strips, and to deliver a significantly improved level of accuracy.
The new FreeStyle line of test strips are compatible with all FreeStyle blood glucose monitoring systems, eliminating the need to switch meters. The new test strips also offer all the same benefits FreeStyle users have come to expect, specifically: no-coding required, the world’s smallest blood sample size and virtually pain-free testing.
Abbott said that the new test strips produce finger-stick blood glucose test results such that 95% of results fall within: ±15% of the true glucose value for glucose values equal to or greater than 5,6 millimoles/liter (mmol/l); and ±0.56mmol/l of the true glucose value for glucose values less than 5,6 mmol/l. This improved level of accuracy provides added confidence for health care professionals and people with diabetes when managing diabetes and dosing insulin.
The new FreeStyle and FreeStyle Lite test strips do not use the GDH-PQQ enzyme, which can be affected by common non-glucose sugars. The new FreeStyle line of test strips uses the GDH-FAD enzyme, which is unaffected by common non-glucose sugars, such as maltose or galactose, and minimises the potential for interference.
The FreeStyle test strips are now available to customers in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Over the coming months, the strips will be available to customers in Australia, Israel and Norway.
Heather Mason, senior vice president at Abbott Diabetes Care, said: “The new FreeStyle line of test strips represents Abbott’s latest success in delivering innovative products for people living with diabetes.
“By providing a better testing experience and achieving greater levels of accuracy, Abbott is delivering on what patients and health care professionals demand in diabetes care, especially for people who use insulin to manage their diabetes.”