Speaking to Scotland’s The Nine, she recalled: “When we arrived in Euston station, Fiona would be due her insulin, so I took her to the ladies loo to give her the jab.
“I thought as I was in there that the equipment we used was incredibly primitive. You had a glass syringe with a steel needle that you sent away to get sharpened and you had to boil them up on the stove, and keep them in a flask.
“We’re taking this out and drawing insulin out of a glass vial or bottle – it was pretty brutal. I thought that this was medieval, there must be a better way.”
From there, she developed the idea with Dr John Ireland and Dr John Paton while working at the Southern General hospital in Glasgow in 1978.
She added: “I was working alongside John Ireland but neither of us had the skills to make a metering device so we recruited John Paton – he came up with the device that was like a biro pen, where if you pushed the button on the end you would have two units [of insulin].”
In 1981 trials of the pen began, and within two years the world’s first commercial insulin pen – Penject – was released onto the market.
It has since become a commonly used method of taking insulin, and continues to be used to this day, alongside more modern inventions such as insulin pumps.
Dr Reith said that she knew from the start the idea had “tremendous potential” to make life easier for people with diabetes.
Those with type 1 diabetes cannot produce insulin naturally, and are reliant on a number of injections each day to make up the shortfall.
