Lein raises 3rd funding from Seven Spires; seeks more investment

Lein Applied Diagnostics, a British company that develops blood glucose measuring for people with diabetes, has announced it has received further investment from its shareholder Seven Spires Investments. The company is seeking more investment to put a non-invasive blood glucose meter into clinical trials.

Dan Daly, the director and the founder of Lein, declined to disclose the amount of investment it has received, but added this is the third investment from Seven Spires, since the company’s inception in 2003. Daly said the company is currently looking for other investors and is hoping to raise a total of £6 million for clinical trials for its meter in Europe and in the US.

Lein is eyeing on the finger-prick test market, which is currently estimated to be about $5.9 billion and is expected to increase by 10 per cent a year. Daly said Lein’s product could be available in 2008.

The company’s noninvasive meter could transform the way people with diabetes test their blood glucose levels. In recent clinical tests, the prototype instrument, which uses an optical measurement technique to track the amount of glucose in the eye, produced well correlated readings of blood glucose levels when tested on volunteers of widely varying ages, according to Daly. Tests have also been performed with “success” on volunteers with contact lenses. Eventually Lein is aiming to produce a small, battery-powered device that can be “carried around in a pocket or handbag”.

There are 1.8 million patients with diabetes in the UK and over 200 million worldwide, and numbers are predicted to rise dramatically owing to an ageing population and the general increase in obesity rates, said Daly in an interview.

People with Type 1 diabetes currently have to measure their glucose levels four or five times a day in order to control their condition. The procedure involves taking a blood sample from a finger prick test. The process makes some people reluctant to test themselves as often as they should, increasing the likelihood of complications such as heart disease and blindness.

Seven Spires is an angel investment fund established in 2003 with £25 million fund size. It invests in early-stage, high-tech companies in the UK, such as university and industrial spinouts, start-up ventures. The manager recommending investments to the Directors of Seven Spires Investments is Ian Page, visiting professor at Imperial College and the founder of Oxford University spinout Celoxica, which makes chip design software. Seven Spires is also a member of Thames Valley Investment Network, which is managed by Oxford Innovation Ltd, an operator of innovation centre premises for start-up companies.