Pain free testing blood sugar levels
Adlershof startup is developing laser-based monitoring of patients with diabetes
The more frequently diabetics measure their blood sugar levels, the more precise they can administer insulin. However, the measurements require a painful drop of blood every time. The young company DiaMonTech GmbH has developed a procedure that optically measures sugar levels using lasers. By 2021, the newly Adlershof-based company aims to make its smartwatch-solution market-ready to facilitate continuous blood sugar testing.
Tired and fatigued, or shaky and nervous. If insulin dosages are not right, patients with diabetes feel their condition all the time. Their life quality increases the more accurately the dosage is adjusted to their blood sugar levels. Frequent measuring has a major disadvantage: it requires a small drop of fresh blood several times a day.
The founders of the newly Adlershof-based company DiaMonTech GmbH want to change this. Instead using a drop of blood to assess sugar levels, a device uses a laser to send infrared light waves into the patient’s skin. The light is aimed at the liquid everybody knows from blisters and fresh abrasions. The concentration of sugar molecules in this so-called “interstitial fluid” can provide information on blood sugar levels. The procedure that makes this possible has been developed in years of basic research by a team at Goethe University Frankfurt. The head of the team, Prof. Werner Mäntele, is also the start-up’s scientific director.
Together with his colleagues Otto Hertzberg and Alexander Bauer, Mäntele researched the relationship between blood sugar levels and interstitial fluid and developed a spectrometric procedure for sugar testing in the skin. The infrared light hits glucose molecules in the fluid, which results in tiny temperature changes. These are transferred to an optical device, which is deflected by the laser. Based on these deflections, algorithms calculate the sugar concentration.
What started as an apparatus filling an entire room has now been shrunk by DiaMonTech to the size of a shoebox. Patients put their finger on a crystal prism that directs the laser beam into the skin. A purely optical and pain-free procedure. The team wants to push things even further. By 2019, the measuring device will be shrunk to the size of a muffin so that it fits into handbags and jacket pockets. Similarly, it is planned to shrink the five-digit price tag. “Our current device not only serves obtaining medical approval and verifying our procedure is precise enough – we also used very expensive optics and a quantum cascade laser, which enables us to refine the measurement method,” says CEO Thorsten Lubinski. That’s why it’s possible to go from shoebox to muffin-sized.
This is also just an intermediate step. Soon diabetics will be able to wear the device, which contains lasers, optics and electronics, on their wrist like a watch. This is the next step towards continuous, autonomous and pain-free measurement of sugar levels. Lubinski, who has founded and sold several profitable start-ups, is aware of the challenges. Not only the laser source and other optical components for spectrometric measuring must be made watch-sized, but also data technology, power supply and efficient thermal management.
The scientific foundation is strong. The founders have also acquired the necessary capital for product development. Business angels and venture capital companies have joined in and provided additional legal expertise and industry knowledge. Now the team is hoping it will find partners that are just as competent in terms of technical implementation. “This is one of the reasons we moved into the Centre for Photonics and Optical Technologies during the product development phase,” says Lubinski. He has heard many good things about the cluster for photonics and medical technology in Adlershof. “We are looking forward to see which contacts Adlershof will yield.”
By Peter Trechow for Adlershof Journal