idea-012 · desirability deck
Every slide states a condition that would have to be true, then reports where it stands using the candidate file's own claim and its own confidence tag. A deck never upgrades a tag, invents a number, or recommends anything, and there is no ask slide.
The chair: the owner of a diabetic dog or cat, and the veterinarian or veterinary technician who has to decide whether to prescribe a home sensor in place of, or alongside, serial blood-glucose-curve sampling.
How to read this: every slide is a condition, not a conclusion. A bracketed claim reference points into knowledge-base/candidates/idea-012.md — the number is the claim's position in its ## Claims list, the tag is copied from it and never adjusted here. A [no claim] marker means nothing in the file speaks to the condition at all. See docs/deck-spec.md.
Would have to be true: There would have to be a population of diagnosed, insulin-treated diabetic dogs and cats in the US, currently managed by serial blood-glucose-curve sampling (venipuncture or lancet), large enough for a monitoring device to matter to.
Where it stands: No current US-specific population figure exists anywhere in the file. The best US data is dated hospital-presentation prevalence from 1970-1999: 19 to 64 cases per 10,000 admissions/year in dogs [claim 17: unconfirmed], 8 to 124 per 10,000 in cats [claim 18: unconfirmed]. Two larger, more recent comparators exist but are not US: UK primary-care feline prevalence of 0.39% in 2019 [claim 24: unconfirmed], and Japanese pet-insurance canine prevalence rising from 0.07% to 0.30% between 2015 and 2023 [claim 25: unconfirmed]. The general claim that diabetes is a common endocrine disease in dogs and cats carries no sourced figure at all [claim 7: unconfirmed]. Even whether off-label glucose monitors are already in real use in this population is itself unconfirmed [claim 3: unconfirmed].
What would settle it: A current US veterinary epidemiology study or an aggregated electronic-health-record report (e.g. a Banfield/BluePearl "State of Pet Health"-style report) — no connector in this repo reaches veterinary population data, so this would need a human-attached source.
If it's false: The TAM population component has no floor at all [claim 8: unconfirmed], and Factor 3 (TAM) stays blank regardless of what price or reachable-share assumptions follow.
Would have to be true: An owner or veterinary technician would have to place a subcutaneous sensor under a haired-skin (clipped or fur-parting) adhesive and keep it attached and readable for most of its labeled wear period, at home, without a clinic visit to troubleshoot it.
Where it stands: No performance data exists yet for this candidate's own adhesive [no claim] — the write-back below states exactly this gap. The nearest behavioral proxy is the off-label analog's track record on an unmodified, human-designed adhesive: 70% (46/66) of FreeStyle Libre sensors stopped functioning in situ before the 14-day label end in diabetic cats, with a median functional life of 8.3 days [claim 13: unconfirmed]. This candidate's central design lever is a species-specific adhesive meant to beat that number, and nothing in the file yet says it does [claim 26: unverified].
What would settle it: A wear-time and detachment study of this candidate's actual sensor on real dogs and cats, benchmarked directly against the 8.3-day / 70%-failure baseline.
If it's false: The device degrades to the same "not quite reliable at home" experience the off-label product already has, and the species-specific form factor is marketing rather than a demonstrated improvement.
Would have to be true: A veterinarian would have to trust this device enough to prescribe it in place of, or alongside, serial blood-glucose curves — and specifically to trust its readings during hypoglycemia, since the intended use names hypoglycemia detection explicitly alongside insulin-dose titration.
Where it stands: This is the sharpest version of "who else has to say yes," and the file's own sourced evidence cuts against it. The off-label, human-calibrated analog is documented to underestimate glucose in euglycemia and mild hypoglycemia but overestimate it in marked hypoglycemia (<55 mg/dL) — exactly the range where a falsely reassuring high reading is most dangerous [claim 12: unconfirmed]. A second study shows accuracy in dogs is skin-thickness dependent, with low accuracy in thin-skinned dogs [claim 14: unconfirmed], and a third reports the class generally is reliable at normal/high glucose but more variable at low glucose [claim 4: unconfirmed]. Whether this candidate's own species-specific calibration algorithm corrects either bias is entirely unestablished [claim 30: unverified] (see the feasibility deck's slide 2, which carries this condition). Whether a veterinarian would trust the device for hypoglycemia detection regardless is a separate, also-unestablished behavioral question, and this deck's own write-back [claim 27: unverified].
What would settle it: A validation study of this candidate's calibration algorithm against a reference glucose meter specifically in the hypoglycemic range, followed by structured interviews with prescribing veterinarians on what accuracy threshold they would require before trusting a device for hypoglycemia detection.
If it's false: The device is confined to titration-monitoring use only, and the "alternative to serial blood-glucose-curve sampling" framing in the intended use overstates what a vet would actually let it replace.
Would have to be true: The owner would have to be willing to pay a premium price out of pocket, since pet-insurance reimbursement for devices is inconsistent and not established, and would have to accept the sensor-placement and skin burden on their animal.
Where it stands: The candidate states this plainly as an assumption, not a fact: owner and clinician willingness to pay a premium out of pocket is unconfirmed by design — the adoption connector returns unverifiable for this class of question, and no synthetic stakeholder opinion was substituted [claim 9: unconfirmed]. No CPT/HCPCS code or federal payer coverage applies to a veterinary device, and no connector in this repo reaches pet-insurance data [claim 10: unconfirmed]. The nearest real price point is a single veterinary clinic's posted rate for the off-label analog — $75.08 per 14-day sensor — one data point, not a systematic survey, and not this candidate's own price [claim 19: unconfirmed].
What would settle it: A veterinary-economics survey of what diagnosed diabetic-pet owners already pay for glucose monitoring, and what they say they would pay for a purpose-built device; a licensed pet-insurance policy review (Trupanion, Nationwide, ASPCA) for any device-coverage precedent.
If it's false: The TAM's reachable-share component has no floor [claim 8: unconfirmed], since willingness to pay is what turns a diagnosed population into a paying one.
Would have to be true: An owner would have to see something change early — fewer stressful vet visits, a sensor that stays on, a pet that seems less anxious — and a veterinarian would have to be able to point at some real-world track record.
Where it stands: The closest available evidence is a revealed-preference twin for the existing off-label product, not this one: in a 2023 survey of 50 diabetic-pet owners already using FreeStyle Libre, more than 80% rated it easier and less stressful than blood-glucose curves and 92% reported better diabetes control since switching [claim 20: unconfirmed] — the same owners named sensor fixation (47%), preventing premature detachment (40%), and long-term affordability (36%) as their top frictions. That is evidence about the product people already adopted, not about this not-yet-built one [no claim].
What would settle it: The same kind of owner survey run on this candidate's own device once a pilot cohort exists — the twin study already tells you what questions to ask.
If it's false: Owners default to comparing this device unfavourably against the off-label alternative they can already get today, on both belief and friction.
Would have to be true: A small first placement cohort — a handful of real diabetic dogs and cats — would have to show wear time, detachment rate, and hypoglycemia-range accuracy at least as good as the off-label baseline this candidate is designed to beat.
Where it stands: Nothing device-specific exists yet. Both engineering conditions this deck put on record are unbacked [claim 26: unverified], [claim 27: unverified], and the calibration-correction claim that would settle slide 3 is likewise unbacked [claim 30: unverified]. The comparison baseline they would be measured against already exists in the literature and is sourced: 70% premature sensor failure [claim 13: unconfirmed], skin-thickness-dependent accuracy [claim 14: unconfirmed], marked-hypoglycemia overestimation [claim 12: unconfirmed].
What would settle it: A small bench-and-field pilot — the cheapest test on this deck, because the comparison baseline already exists in published literature; it requires running this candidate's device against a known bar, not designing a study from nothing.
If it's false: There is no device-specific data at all, and every desirability question above stays permanently at the level of an off-label analog's track record.
Every condition above with nothing verified behind it — the [no claim] markers, plus the unverified claims this deck itself put on record. Read this slide first.
adoption
connector returns unverifiable by design for this class of question.
The one structural note worth stating plainly: the only verified claim anywhere in this file is regulatory permission — that veterinary-only devices sit outside FDA premarket review [claim 1: verified]. Not one verified claim anywhere in this file is about anyone wanting the thing, which the rubric itself does not score for.
If only one thing from this chair could be checked: whether a veterinarian would rely on this device for hypoglycemia detection, given that the off-label analog's own underlying sensing technology is documented to overestimate blood glucose during marked hypoglycemia (<55 mg/dL) in cats [claim 27: unverified], [claim 12: unconfirmed].
It is the sharpest version of "who else has to say yes": the intended use names hypoglycemia detection explicitly, the file's own sourced literature shows the analog technology's bias runs the wrong way at exactly the range that matters most, and whether this candidate's species-specific calibration algorithm corrects that bias is itself unestablished [claim 30: unverified]. Everything else on this deck — adherence, willingness to pay, owner belief — presupposes a vet is willing to prescribe the device for its stated purpose in the first place.
Naming it is not a recommendation, a gate, or a kill. It is the answer to "check what first."