Fluorescent Chemosensors in the Creation of a Commercially Available Continuous Glucose Monitor

Fully automated insulin delivery (i.e., an artificial pancreas) would revolutionize diabetes disease management, minimize negative secondary disease outcomes, and simultaneously reduce health care costs and system burdens. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) is an essential aspect of the artificial pancreas. Abiotic fluorescent chemosensors play a key role in generating long-lived CGM sensors for this purpose. In this Perspective, we detail our initial discoveries of chemosensors for saccharides, as well as the development and advancement of bis((o-aminomethylphenyl)boronic acid)anthracene-based sensors for commercial use. While a few companies have sought to bring a copolymerized diboronic acid CGM sensor to the market, Senseonics is the only one, to date, to have done so. In this case, the system has been approved in the U.S. and Europe to provide accurate CGM for up to 365 days with a single sensor and can be integrated directly with an insulin pump, bringing an artificial pancreas one step closer to realization.