‘It’s opened my eyes to the possibilities of new diabetes treatments’ – Ed Snook on working for Kanga

Many of Kanga’s employees have health conditions themselves or are carers for those in their immediate families, and this helps us stay connected to what we do. Our Account Manager Ed Snook, who has Type I diabetes, has recently facilitated a number of patient co-creation workshops on the subject of diabetes. In honour of World Diabetes Day this 14^th November, I had a chat with him to find out how it went.

What’s it like working for Kanga, as someone with diabetes?

It’s the 10^th year since I was diagnosed with Type 1, and working for Kanga has opened up my eyes to the sheer amount of research going on in diabetes care, as well as the possibilities for new kinds of treatments that are potentially just years away!  It’s been exciting to work with a number of pharma companies who are leading the way in this research, but also beginning to involve patients at the heart of their digital strategy.

How have you been working with diabetes patients recently and what did you learn?

I was lucky enough to meet several patients on Insulin Pump Therapy (IPT) this year, to film their stories of diagnosis, living with diabetes, and their tips and tricks to successfully managing the disease through IPT. Those videos along with nutrition animations developed by our team will eventually sit on an IPT patient information app. I self-inject my insulin, but the patient and carer stories and the information they provided really made me consider whether IPT could be an alternative for me.

It was also terrific to work on a Twitter campaign covering a congress last year, where one company were informing HCPs about their new flash glucose monitoring device, a device that I use myself. We ran a Twitter ‘clinic’ for HCPs to help them join Twitter, follow the company’s handle, and therefore receive updates about the device.

I’m looking forward to what the next few years hold as we continue to partner with pharma companies working in diabetes.

Where would you point people who’d like to find out more about the future of diabetes treatment?

I urge you to check out Diabetes UK’s World Diabetes Day page for all the information you might want about the disease and research developments.

About Kay Wesley

Congleton Town Councillor for the Women's Equality Party. CEO of Kanga Health Ltd - practical digital transformation of healthcare.