App for Gaithersburg teens with diabetes awaits FDA approval

Washington – Back in September 2020, 13-year-old Drew Mendelow was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes.

“The doctors all gave me a lot of information,” he recalled several months later. “I felt very overwhelmed.”

Mendelow needs an app to track things like insulin doses and blood sugar levels, but doctors said her options are limited.

“Some have a fee, some have advertising, and they don’t allow you to use different doses at different times of the day,” Dr. Bryn Marks of Children’s National Hospital explained at the time.

But 13-year-old patient Mendelow bounced back.

“From the day I got home from the hospital, I started working on my app,” he told Fox 5 in November 2020.

The app, called T1D1, became popular. It has been downloaded over 45,000 times. Mendelow’s doctor recommended it to other patients. That is, until the app was removed in 2021 because it did not have permission from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Mendelow, now a 17-year-old soccer player at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg, has been working to get FDA approval ever since. He secured his personal funding and the app was redesigned, but more expensive steps still remain.

Mendelow said human factors testing must be completed. As a result, he started his campaign to crowdfund in hopes of finally getting his FDA clearance and keeping T1D1 free.

“My motto for this app is that I want to keep it free with no ads. I have no intention of making any profit from the app. It’s only intended to help other people with type 1 diabetes. ,” Mendelow told Fox 5. .

His goal is to have the app up and running by the end of the year.

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