Glucon, developer of a continuous, noninvasive, glucose monitoring technology for home and clinical use, today named Suzuken Co., Ltd (TSE: 9987), Japan’s largest pharmaceuticals distributor, as one of the company’s strategic investors.
Suzuken Co.’s equity investment in Glucon was part of a $14.8 million financing round announced in September.
“Suzuken continuously searches worldwide for scientifically sound technologies which are likely to fill an unmet need in the Japanese health care market. We believe that Glucon’s glucose monitoring watch (GMW) will revolutionize the treatment of diabetes and lead to better healthcare for diabetes patients in Japan,” said Suzuken general manager Shigeru Wada.
Under the terms of the agreement, Suzuken will manage the regulatory process in Japan and will have the exclusive rights to market the GMW in the Japanese market. Suzuken and its subsidiaries are major distributors of diabetes-related devices and pharmaceuticals. Suzuken currently controls more than 50% of the diabetes market in Japan through its SKK subsidiary.
Glucon’s technology enables blood glucose measurements to be accessed directly from inside the blood vessels and offers an improved method both for specificity (identification) and sensitivity (detection of level changes) of the glucose measurement. The company’s desktop prototype device, the GMW, is currently undergoing extensive clinical trials. Seed financing was provided by InnoMed Ventures, the life science fund of Jerusalem Global Ventures. Additional investors include Giza Venture Capital, Infinity Venture Capital Fund, Ascend Technology Ventures, Reslo Life Science and Suzuken.
Triangle Technologies was instrumental in forming the current strategic relationship between Glucon and Suzuken. Triangle Technologies has assisted in about 100 deals, worth an aggregate $400 million. Triangle’s customers include Given Imaging (Nasdaq: GIVN; TASE:GIVN), Discretix, Exanet, Accord Telecommunications, Optibase (Nasdaq: OBAS), Voltaire Inc., Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (Nasdaq: TEVA; TASE: TEVA), ECI Telecom (Nasdaq: ECIL), BigBand Networks, Compugen (Nasdaq: CGEN; TASE: CGEN), and Glucon.
Triangle Technologies vice president Yoshinori Oikawa stated that Suzuken had evaluated dozens of glucose monitoring projects internationally before selecting to invest in Glucon.
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on Monday, December 20, 2004