GlySens secures $20 million Series D funding for implanted long-term CGM – January 6, 2016

Yesterday, fully implantable CGM developer GlySens announced the closing a $20 million round of Series D financing led by undisclosed prior investors from its Series C round, with participation from new undisclosed investors. The financing will enable, according to the company: (i) the expansion of clinical trials to help support a CE-Marking application for the one-year implanted CGM sensor and standalone receiver (one or two calibrations per month); (ii) the hiring of new staff; and (iii) investments in an optimized manufacturing plant. It is not clear how long the funds will last. GlySens is nearing completion on its first commercial-version standalone receiver, and plans are “in process” to send sensor data directly to a smartphone. The latter is key, given how Dexcom’s G5 and Abbott’s LibreLink and even Medtronic’s MiniMed Connect have now moved onto the phone (plus, eliminating the receiver could make GlySens’ implantable CGM truly invisible). We last heard from GlySens at DTM 2015, where highly regarded Dr. Joseph Lucisano shared positive big picture takeaways from the small, recently extended ongoing trial that could support a CE Mark (n=20; primary completion in July 2016). It’s hard to know how the advantages of an implantable CGM system (always on, “invisibility”) will stack up to increasingly strong competitive offerings from Abbott, Dexcom, and Medtronic (factory calibration, smartphone connectivity, smaller transmitters, dosing claim, closing the loop, etc.), though we salute GlySens for continuing to push forward – not enough are on CGM globally, and patients need more options. In the implantable realm, GlySens has some key advantages over Senseonics (intended implant life of one year, infrequent calibration, no body-worn components), though we’ll get an earlier look at the latter once it soon launches in Europe following its reverse merger in December to go public. Being a glucose monitoring startup is not easy in this environment, though we’re glad to see continued competition in CGM! It’s a bit strange that the investors are not disclosed – we’ll look forward to learning more about them in the future.

-- by Ava Runge, Adam Brown, and Kelly Close