ArKal Medical Raised $17.5M For Continuous Glucose Monitoring

ArKal Medical, Inc. raised $17.5 million in a Series B financing round led by Thomas McNerney & Partners. Existing investors, Delphi Ventures and MedVenture Associates were also significant investors in this round.

ArKal Medical is developing a novel continuous glucose monitoring system for the management of diabetes. ArKal’s monitoring system is designed to eliminate many of the inconveniences of current glucose monitoring technologies.

“There is a lot of room to improve both convenience and ease of use in continuous glucose monitoring in the management of diabetes. ArKal Medical’s technology has the potential to make an important advancement and address significant unmet needs in this market,” said Pete McNerney cofounder and partner at Thomas McNerney and Partners.

Diabetes is a chronic, life-threatening disease for which there is no known cure. It is a syndrome characterized by hyperglycemia and relative insulin deficiency. Diabetes affects more than 120 million people worldwide, and is projected to affect more than 220 million people by the year 2020. It is estimated that one out of every three children today will develop diabetes sometime during their lifetime. Diabetes is usually irreversible, and can lead to a variety of severe health complications, including coronary artery disease, peripheral vascular disease, blindness and stroke. The Center for Disease Control (CDC) has reported that there is a strong association between being overweight, obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma and arthritis. Individuals with a body mass index of 40 or higher are more than 7 times more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes.

The blood glucose self-monitoring market is the largest self-test market for medical diagnostic products in the world, with a size of approximately over $3 billion in the United States and $7.0 billion worldwide. It is estimated that the worldwide blood glucose self-monitoring market will amount to $9.0 billion by 2008. Failure to manage the disease properly has dire consequences for diabetics. The direct and indirect costs of diabetes exceed $130 billion annually in the United States—about 20% of all healthcare costs.

Continuous Blood Glucose Monitoring

The FDA has approved four diagnostic devices for the continuous monitoring of glucose levels for   diabetes.  Cyngus developed the GlucoWatch  that would monitor levels with a wrist watch display for readings.  J&J acquired Animas and the intellectual property behind GlucoWatch with the purchase of Cyngus.  Medtronic has 2 devices (Guardian RT Glucose Monitoring System and CGMS System) that continuously monitor blood glucose levels Dexcom continuously monitors blood glucose levels with the Seven System device.