A slew of big league investors infused Bedford, Mass.-based devicemakers MicroCHIPS with $16.5 million in cash to fund clinical tests this year on devices that could help those suffering from diabetes or osteoporosis better manage their conditions.

The ten-year-old company announced on Thursday that a pack of investors, including device giant Medtronic and Novartis Venture Fund, invested the money that will help bring to trial two implantable devices relying on sensor array technology.

"The people who invested in MicroCHIPS see the value of our platform," Maggie Pax, vice president of business development, tells DOTmed News.

Other investors include Polaris Venture Partners, Flybridge Capital Partners, Saints Capital, Intersouth Partners, Care Capital, CSK Venture Capital and, in their first investment for MicroCHIPS, InterWest Partners.

'ROUND THE CLOCK GLUCOSE MONITORING

Much of the attraction for these companies has been an implantable continuous glucose monitoring device MicroCHIPS hopes will allow those with diabetes to keep their blood sugar levels in the optimal range.

"The finger-stick has been around for a long time, and in many ways it's a wonderful test," Pax says. "But people look at continuous glucose monitoring like it's a movie. Since our bodies are dynamic and changing, it's preferable to have a trend," says Pax.

A recent New England Journal of Medicine study provided by the company showed that about a third of patients with type 1 diabetes using the continuous glucose monitors hit blood glucose targets of less than 7 percent glycated hemoglobin levels, compared to fewer than one out of 14 controls.

The device probably helps those with the disease keep blood sugar levels low, as they can fine-tune their insulin dosing while not risking hypoglycemia, Pax says.

"People don't manage their levels as low as they could," she says. "Right now, I can lower my glucose levels a lot, but I can risk hypoglycemia if I'm not careful."

But with continuous glucose monitoring, the patient can get alerts to warn them against dosing when their levels are already low.

LONG-LASTING

While other companies make continuous blood glucose products, including Medtronic, one of MicroCHIPS' investors, the devices usually only last a week or two at most, Pax says.

"They are great devices and they help people a lot, but it's not something you can forget about," Pax says. "[You're] asking someone to do a lifetime of exchanges on a weekly basis."

MicroCHIPS hopes their product will last months, or even years, and their main innovation is to create the implant with a differently-built sensor. Current devices, Pax says, have a single sensor that can only detect glucose levels until it runs out of the sensing chemical. But the MicroCHIPS device employs a redundant array of sensors, with each one becoming active as needed.

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