World Diabetes Day: Access to Diabetes Care

One in ten adults worldwide have diabetes, with close to half not yet diagnosed. And over 90% of those people living with diabetes have type 2 diabetes. As we mark World Diabetes Day on Tuesday 14 November 2023, we wanted to highlight the innovations – in diagnostics and treatment - of the companies backed by venture capital and private equity across Europe. Their work is, and will be, critical for the 783 million adults that are projected to be living with diabetes by 2045.

More broadly, this is a day to mark the essential work of our industry across the healthcare sector, from tackling escalating expenses to ensuring widespread access to care.

Invest Europe film: IQ Capital’s Neurovalens, the brainwaves behind future healthcare

• Watch the short film here.

• IQ Capital’s backing of Neurovalens, a start up operating in Europe and the USA, is all about putting an end to expensive and invasive surgical procedures via a novel headset. With some 537 million adults living with diabetes in 2021, this innovation offers not just a non-surgical, at-home treatment, but will be a big financial alleviation for healthcare systems globally.

• 'The brainwaves behind future healthcare' is part of the ‘A Different Angle’ film series, presented by Invest Europe and produced by BBC StoryWorks, bringing to screen the human stories at the heart of the businesses that are driving change and fuelling growth through private capital.

Sofinnova’s LimFlow, a life saving treatment and VC success story

• A new treatment: LimFlow ‘s game-changing technology, which has received FDA approval, is a life-saving option for patients who face amputation because of Critical Limb Ischemia (CLI).

  • CLI is the most severe form of peripheral artery disease and often occurs in patients suffering from diabetes, but also from coronary artery disease, obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Patients with CLI experience profound, chronic pain and if untreated can develop festering wounds or infections that lead to major limb amputation, an event closely associated with increased mortality and reduced quality of life.

  • LimFlow enables clinicians to bring new hope to end-stage CLI patients when all other revascularization efforts have been exhausted. By restoring perfusion to the ischemic foot through a completely novel, percutaneous procedure, the LimFlow System can relieve pain, promote wound healing, reduce amputations, and restore mobility, giving patients the possibility of living a normal life.

• A European VC success story: LimFlow is a French medtech company created and incubated by the visionary team of entrepreneurs that pioneered Sofinnova Partners’ medtech accelerator, MD Start.

  • The company graduated from incubation and was then backed by Sofinnova’s growth-stage fund, Sofinnova Crossover 1, as the fund’s inaugural deal.

  • The company announced on 1 Nov 2023, that it was set to be acquired by Inari Medical for as much as $415 million, including $250 million upfront.

Other examples of PE/VC investments in diabetes-related companies include:

• EQT Life Sciences and Life Science Partners invested in Belgium’s Imcyse, a company developing a potential cure for chronic autoimmune conditions including type 1 diabetes and multiple sclerosis.

• Jeito invested in UK-based Quell Therapeutics to develop multiple engineered T-regulator cell therapies that have the potential to be curative in Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) indications.

• The Wales Life Sciences Investment Fund, the VI Partners Swiss Innovation Fund, and Credit Suisse invested in Switzerland-based CeQur, a company developing and commercialising drug delivery devices for people with type II diabetes.

• Eight Roads Ventures, Albion Capital, Partech Ventures and Walking Ventures invested in London and Zurich-based Oviva, the leading digital provider of type 2 diabetes treatment in Europe.

• Forbion capital partners invested in France-based Cellnovo, a company manufacturing the first mobile, connected all-in-one diabetes management system.

• Roche Venture Fund first invested then acquired mySugr, an app and survice people with diabetes use for coaching, testing trips and automated data tracking.