San Diego’s Biolinq raises $10M for painless blood glucose sensors

San Diego’s Biolinq, a start-up that’s developing pain-free blood glucose sensors, said Monday it has raised $10 million in venture capital led by M Ventures and Hikma Ventures.

The money will help launch clinical studies required to get Biolinq’s sensor technology approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Chief Executive Jared Tangney.

Tangney declined to reveal too much about the technology but described it as minimally invasive and “painless.” Current continuous glucose monitoring systems involve tiny sensors inserted under the skin with needles and sometimes finger pricks to calibrate monitors.

“Our first product is not just another continuous glucose monitoring technology, but a platform we built from the ground up with a focus on the end user,” said Tangney. “Our vision is to utilize our novel manufacturing approach to achieve low-cost and high uniformity, enabling factory calibration -- no finger sticks -- in a nickel-sized patch.”

Biolinq also named Dan Bradbury executive chairman of its board of directors. Bradbury is the former chief executive of San Diego’s Amylin Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2013.

Founded in 2012 by Tangney and Josh Windmiller – both Ph.D. graduates of UC San Diego -- Biolinq was formerly named Electrozyme. It built printed electrochemical sensors for the wearable fitness market that detected biomarkers in sweat.

Electrozyme raised a seed round of around $1 million led by Dallas Mavericks’ owner and Shark Tank star Mark Cuban. It also received about $2.6 million in grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.

In 2015, the company changed its name to Biolinq when it pivoted from sweat sensing for athletes to monitoring blood glucose for diabetes.

Biolinq now employs seven people but expects to expand to 20 employees over the next year, said Tangney. Grey Sky Venture Partners, Three Leaf Ventures, LifeSci Venture Partners and a group of high-net-worth individuals from the diabetes field also contributed to the round.

“We are leading this round of investment with an excellent group of co-investors, all with the same goal of making the convenient and painless monitoring of multiple biomarkers a reality for patients in need,” said Edward Kliphuis of M Ventures, an affiliate of German-based Merck KGaA, in a statement.

Hikma Ventures is the corporate venture capital arm of London-based Hikma Pharmaceuticals.

“Chronic diseases like diabetes affect millions of people worldwide with a high prevalence in the Middle East and North Africa; markets we know well,” said Lana Ghanem, managing director of Hikma Ventures in a statement. “We look forward to working with the Biolinq team and our co-investors to bring this pioneering technology to patients.”

mike.freeman@sduniontribune.com;

Twitter:@TechDiego

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