One patch a day. It reads your levels and doses your medicine.
Micropatch is a skin patch that measures glucose in the fluid just under your skin and gives you insulin in small doses, worked out for your body, every five minutes. Put a fresh one on in the morning and get on with your day.
Micropatch is an idea, not a product. It is not a medical device and nothing on this site should change how you manage your health.
Illustrative model, not patient data. Same meals and the same afternoon walk for every body. Fixed doses are set for a typical body; Micropatch has learned this one. Automated insulin systems on sale today reached 71% time in range in a 168-person trial.46
Doses are set by the clinic. Bodies change by the hour.
Most medicine is still given on a fixed schedule worked out at an appointment. Your body does not stay on that schedule. Meals, sleep, illness, exercise and hormones change what you need, and the person carrying the dose has to keep up.
Sense, decide, dose, learn. Every five minutes, all day.
Each part already works somewhere: in a glucose sensor, an insulin pump or a lab. Micropatch puts them under one adhesive you change once a day.
- 1 · Sense
Read the fluid under your skin
Microneedles carry sensors into the fluid between skin cells. Glucose reaches it 5 to 6 minutes after it reaches your blood.19
1 reading / 5 min · 288 a day - 2 · Decide
Predict the next hour
An algorithm on the patch forecasts the next hour, allowing for insulin still working. Omnipod 5 does this today.44
runs on the patch, no phone needed - 3 · Dose
Give a small dose, or none
A micro-pump pushes insulin through hollow microneedles, or pauses when you are heading low.
hard limits set with your clinician - 4 · Learn
Tune to your body
It re-estimates your insulin sensitivity, carb ratio and daily rhythm. Personal tuning raised time in range from 72% to 77% in a 2025 trial.51
ISF · carb ratio · basal profile
A day with it
Put on today's patch, on the upper arm or belly, then take off yesterday's. Sensors today need 27 minutes to 2 hours to warm up,586 so the old patch keeps working until the new one is ready.
Breakfast. Glucose starts to rise and the patch gives small doses as it does. You do nothing.
A long walk. Your level falls faster than usual, so the patch pauses insulin before you go low.
Asleep. The early-morning rise in glucose-raising hormones is met with a little more insulin.
A fresh patch. The old one goes in the sharps bin with yesterday's empty reservoir.
Most of the pieces exist. Nobody has put them in one daily patch.
Where each part of Micropatch stands, from products you can buy to results only shown in animals.
| Part | Where it stands | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Reading glucose through the skin | On sale | Dexcom G7 and FreeStyle Libre 3 Plus, worn 10 to 15 days with an average error of about 8%.520 |
| Glucose sensor on microneedles | Cleared 2025 | Biolinq Shine: seven microelectrodes in the upper dermis, worn for 5 days.6 |
| Deciding and dosing insulin automatically | On sale | Omnipod 5, Control-IQ and iLet. Time in range rose from 61% to 71% in a 168-person trial.46 |
| Hollow microneedles that inject into skin | Cleared device | NanoPass MicronJet600, with three 600 µm needles.32 |
| Sensing and dosing insulin at one site | First human study | A patch pump with a glucose sensor in its insulin cannula, tested in 18 adults.4 |
| Reading a drug's level in the body | First human pilot | Vancomycin read every 5 minutes in 6 volunteers, with the best data in the first 12 hours.11 |
| Insulin that responds to glucose by itself | Animals only | A microneedle patch held glucose in range for over 20 hours in minipigs.40 |
| All of it in one daily patch | Not built | This is Micropatch. |
Insulin first. Then any drug whose right dose moves with you.
The same sense-and-dose loop could serve other conditions where the right amount changes through the day. These are research directions, not plans.
Type 1 and insulin-treated type 2 diabetes
- Sense
- Glucose, then ketones
- Dose
- Insulin
The first product. Every part already exists on its own.
Hospital antibiotics
- Sense
- Vancomycin in skin fluid
- Dose
- Vancomycin, to a measured target
Guidelines already dose to a measured level.57 A skin sensor has worked in 6 people; the closed loop only in rats.64
Parkinson's disease
- Sense
- No continuous sensor yet
- Dose
- Levodopa under the skin, all day
A 24-hour levodopa infusion was approved in 2024.61 It runs to a fixed programme; nothing yet senses what you need.
Chemotherapy
- Sense
- 5-FU drug level, no wearable yet
- Dose
- 5-FU
Dosed by body size, only 20% of patients reached the target level.56
A device that doses you has to fail safe.
The rules it would be built around, and the problems still to solve before anyone should wear one.
Built in
- Hard dose limitsA ceiling on any single dose and on each hour's total, set with your clinician and enforced by the patch. US rules leave the number to the maker.3
- Stops when unsureLost signal, a sensor fault or a blocked needle stops dosing and alerts you. US rules require safe behaviour when communication drops.3
- Pauses before lowsInsulin is cut when the forecast heads below range, before you get there.
- Works without your phoneEvery decision runs on the patch. The phone shows your data but is not needed to keep you safe.
- Software that can be fixedIn 2019 about 4,000 US patients' pumps were recalled because a nearby attacker could change their settings and the pumps could not be updated.81
Still to solve
- Sensing where insulin goes inInsulin delivered beside a sensor can disturb its reading. One combined device has been tried, in 18 adults.4
- Catching a faulty sensorA recall of glucose sensors that read falsely low had 860 serious injuries and 7 deaths reported.76 A patch that doses must spot a bad sensor itself.
- Meals with no inputMost systems still need you to say you are eating. iLet removed carb counting,49 but nothing cleared handles meals with no input at all.
- Skin, every day28% of glucose sensor users report skin reactions.59 A daily patch needs a gentle adhesive and rotating sites.
- Every other drugEach needs a sensor that lasts a day in people, stability at body temperature and its own trials.11