Accu-chek Mobile blood glucose meter discontinued

The Accu-chek Mobile blood glucose meter has been withdrawn from sale worldwide. However, Accu-chek Mobile test cassettes are still available and will continue to be sold.

When was the Accu-chek Mobile discontinued?

In Australia the Accu-chek Mobile meter was discontinued in January 2022

In the UK and Ireland the Accu-chek Mobile meter was discontinued in August 2022.

Will there be a replacement for the Accu-chek Mobile blood glucose meter?

According to Roche Diagnostics there are no plans to replace the Accu-chek Mobile with a new model.

Why was the Accu-chek Mobile Discontinued?

End of product life cycle

The Accu-chek Mobile was launched over a decade ago (2010). Like all products over time, with changes in technology and the market, sales began to fall. Towards the end of its life a bluetooth dongle was introduced to give it wireless communication. This prolonged its life a little.

It was in fact, one of the longer serving blood glucose meters, from Roche Diagnostics. One reason for this extended life was the above average product design and product industrialization costs, for both the meter and cassette. These higher sunk costs, required a longer time to recoup. The cost to produce each meter was also high and could not be fully passed on to the end user. This meant the Accu-chek Mobile meter had to be sold below cost, with the loss made up over time by cassette sales - so called loss leading.

Headwinds in sales and government policy changes

The Accu-chek Mobile was marketed to insulin users. Insulin users test more frequently which allowed the loss on sale or gifting of meters to be recouped sooner. Many meters are sold at less than cost, but no meter has ever had a build cost approaching the Mobile, except perhaps the Accu-chek Compact - an earlier Boehringer Mannheim all-in-one product. Another reason for targeting insulin users was the shelf life of the cassettes (90 days). An infrequent tester may not get through all 50 tests in this period.

With the growing use of CGMs by Type 1 diabetics, demand for Accu-chek Mobile test cassettes fell to the point where further sales and gifting of the meter became unsustainable, given the product’s high built cost. Increasing competition from low cost meters with less features, also played a part, as governments, faced with increasing type 2 diabetes, prefer low cost systems to contain costs. Lower reimbursment per cassette from the NHS and NDSS coupled with a requirement that the meter's be supplied free, led to Roche withdrawing the product.

Is there an alternative to the Accu-chek Mobile Blood Glucose Meter?

For those looking for a replacment, the Betachek C50 blood glucose meter is an all-in-one cassette meter with an integrated lancing device. It has many of the features of the Accu-chek Mobile and some modern extras, like built-in wireless connectivity and a free mobile app. It does not however, have a lancet drum and tests must be wound into position manually using a thumbwheel. The Betachek C50 has a cost cap for frequent testers, which makes it very affordable and unique in this respect.

BETACHEK C50

Conclusion

The Accu-chek Mobile meter was criticised by some for being bulky and heavy. Tremendous design effort was directed at keeping the device small, but the decision to advance the test tape with a motor meant two AAA batteries had to be accomodated. Attaching a lancing device with lancet drum on the side sealed its fate as a large and weighty meter. Aside from this minor criticism, there is no doubt that the Accu-chek Mobile was a tremendous success and feat of engineering.

Designed and developed in Mannheim, Germany at the facilities of the former Boehringer Mannheim GmbH (acquired by Roche in 1997), it may have been the last product made by the old guard or people who knew the old guard (Curt Englehorn would have been proud). It incorporated enzymatic dye linked chemistry and photometric technology that had been optimised over many years, in many previous products. Its uncompromising engineering was at the level of an SLR camera, but unfortunately unlike an SLR camera, its price had to be lower than its cost of production.