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Story 05 December 2019
Public

News: 31M€ Series B funds rollout to Diabeloop and its autonomous diabetes management solutions

Diabeloop
Joana Moreira

Reducing the burden of diabetes management is a significant benefit recognized by patients in clinical trials and confirmed by the success of Diabeloop solutions. According to the Grenoble-based company, this is the biggest Series B round raised by a European company developing therapies that use artificial intelligence. The round was led by the French family office Cemag Invest and includes new French firms Odyssée Ventures and AGIR dom, and the Indian investment firm ADAG.

 

People with type 1 diabetes need to regularly check their blood glucose levels and inject the right dose of insulin to control the condition, a task that is often unpleasant for the patient. Diabeloop’s artificial pancreas technology is designed to overcome this problem by automating the process. Its first product, the DBLG1 system, combines a continuous blood glucose sensor and a miniature patch-type insulin pump. The sensor and pump communicate via Bluetooth with a smartphone equipped with a personalized algorithm developed by French research institute CEA-Leti. 

 

Basically, a glucose reading is sent to the handset via Bluetooth every five minutes. The DBLG1 algorithm analyses data and takes into account the patients’ physiology, physical activity, food intake, and other drug therapies to calculate the correct dose of insulin to administer. Once calculated, the dose is sent directly to the pump.

 

“Our technology is unique. The Diabeloop-developed algorithm adapts to the physiology and lifestyle of each person, which means the glucose trend prediction and insulin delivery are customized. Patients have provided extremely positive feedback, especially in terms of quality of life, as the daily burden of multiple therapeutic decisions is alleviated”, explained Erik Huneker, founder and co-CEO of Diabeloop. 

 

Diabeloop’s commercial potential to provide breakthrough solutions to families dealing with the disease is the reason CEMAG Invest decided to lead the 22-million-euro equity raise and participate in this most recent funding round with a pool of new investors. 

 

“The new investors, led by CEMAG Invest, which is particularly interested in creating value for patients, enable us to launch an unprecedented fundraising event in the therapeutic artificial intelligence sector. Today we can say that Diabeloop is on track for rapid international deployment, which will make our devices accessible to the greatest possible number of patients”, commented Marc Julien, co-CEO of Diabeloop. 

 

This financing will support Diabeloop’s commercial rollout strategy in major international markets and speed up the award-winning company’s innovative programs. The project has received a Phase 2 grant from the EIC SME Instrument program in November 2018, to scale up and target a European adoption of our breakthrough innovation. The total Phase 2 grant amount is 1.955.233 €. 



 

DISCLAIMER: This information is provided in the interest of knowledge sharing and should not be interpreted as the official view of the European Commission, or any other organisation.

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