Integrated Medical Sensors Inc. wants to take the hassle out of glucose monitoring.
The Irvine-based medical device maker, also known as IMS, has been developing an affordable and less painful way for people with diabetes to manage their health.
IMS is harnessing the power of integrated circuits to make the world’s smallest continuous glucose monitor.
The company has raised over $4 million to date through grants from the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, as well as their own money.
IMS is raising its first private fundraising round with the goal of $20 million, which is expected to close at the end of the first quarter of 2024.
The funding will allow the company to ramp up manufacturing.
“We will be able to make a larger number of our devices and test them on more patients,” Chief Executive Muhammad Mujeeb-U-Rahman told the Business Journal.
IMS plans to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration and European regulators after finishing its second round of clinical trials.
Integrated Circuit Technology
The sensor comes pre-loaded in an applicator that users may insert into their skin with the push of a button and monitor their glucose levels via an app on their smartphone.
Traditionally, people with diabetes check their blood sugar by pricking their fingers anywhere from five to 10 times a day, a process that’s often painful.
Similar continuous glucose monitors also exist in the market, but aren’t as cost-effective with average prices ranging from $160 up to $500 per month, according to the American Journal of Managed Care.
“More than 100 million people in the U.S. and Europe alone suffer from diabetes. This is a daily struggle for them,” IMS’s CEO Rahman said.
An electrical engineer by trade, Rahman thought to utilize integrated circuits instead.
Integrated circuits are the basis for most modern technology, however, IMS is the first to use them to develop glucose sensors.
IMS’s glucose monitor has the smallest insertion needle in the industry, making for less painful injection.
IMS is able to make the device so small by having it perform multiple functions, such as processing information, that are normally done by separate components.
Creating sensors with integrated circuits is also one of the most scalable manufacturing processes, Rahman said.
Just one silicon wafer semiconductor produces 50,000 sensors for only $5,000.
Commercialization
IMS has patents in the U.S. and Europe, citing them as having the two biggest markets for continuous glucose monitors.
The company says it expects to get FDA approval for its first product in the United Kingdom by 2025 and the U.S. a year later.
