October 2021: A Berkshire based business has received investment funding to forge ahead with its development of the Occuity Indigo, an extremely innovative non-contact, optical glucose meter. It is hoped the device will allow the 4.7million people in the UK with diabetes to monitor their blood-sugar levels through a simple scan of the eye.

Occuity, the medical technology start-up, which is developing the Indigo, has raised the largest MedTech financing deal (£2.85m) on leading crowdfunding platform, Seedrs. The original £1.8m target was reached within 24 hours of launch. The team, comprised of experts in optics, mechanical engineering, and industrial design, are also collaborating with the medical and academic world including partnerships with the Royal Berkshire Hospital and the University of Bristol.

The deal is ground-breaking for people with diabetes but caught the attention of investors because of the broad potential usage of the company’s patented optical technology for a range of conditions including glaucoma, myopia, diabetes management, pre-diabetes screening and eventually, it is hoped, the early detection of Alzheimer’s disease.

Occuity CEO and Co-founder Dr. Dan Daly comments: “We’re delighted to have become the largest ever MedTech raise on Seedrs with over 850 investors from 37 countries, sharing our vision. Diabetes is a growing, global problem and we believe our technology will enable health services throughout the world to monitor and screen for diabetes, improving the clinical outcomes for the hundreds of millions of people who are unaware they have pre-diabetes or diabetes. The Occuity Indigo will then make regular glucose testing easier, faster and pain-free, improving the daily lives of many millions more people worldwide.”

Design Director, Daniele De Iuliis, who – having spent 27 years as part of Apple’s Industrial Design Group – is now leading on the design of the Occuity Indigo, comments:

“For too long now, the way in which we discover and monitor chronic diseases like diabetes has been routed in repetitive finger stick blood testing with all the pain, discomfort and inconvenience that brings. In contrast, the Occuity Indigo will be a discrete handheld product that will simply scan the eye to take a glucose measurement providing a pain-free 21^st century solution that is long overdue.”

How will the technology work?

Diabetes Screening

• Optical confocal scanning technology allows very precise measurements of structures within the eye, to be made down to micron level.
• The scanning technology will detect the concentration of Advanced Glycation End-Products (AGEs) which build up in the eye over time. 
•  ‘Blue’ light illuminates the eye and the returning scattered blue light alongside green fluorescent light from the AGEs is detected.
• Coupled with machine learning techniques, the readings from this device will give an indication of whether the subject is non-diabetic, pre-diabetic or diabetic
• Taking just a few seconds, the test is completely non-contacting, so can be performed in a non-clinical setting in a pharmacy, an optician’s practice, or even in a domiciliary setting such as a care home.

Glucose monitoring (Occuity Indigo)

• The Occuity Indigo will be based on the company’s core optical confocal scanning technology
• The personal use device will scan the eye’s aqueous humour within the anterior chamber of the eye
• It is non-contact, rapid and completely painless
• The aqueous humour is effectively an ultra-filtrate of blood i.e. blood with the red and white cells filtered out. This means that the levels of glucose found within it correlates very well with that in the blood stream
• As the concentration of glucose in the eye changes, the way in which light travels through the eye – the refractive index – also changes.
• With its ability to make very precise measurements, the Occuity Indigo will be able to detect this change and in turn determine the concentration of glucose in the blood.

• ENDS –

For more information and hi resolution images please contact Helen Trevorrow or Vicky Hague on 0794 000 9138 or email [email protected]

Notes to editors:

Images:

• Dr Dan Daly – CEO
• Daniele De Iuliis – Creative Director – PLEASE CREDIT – Michal Venera
• Concept Designs for the Occuity Indigo, optical glucose monitor

About Occuity: www.occuity.com

Founded in 2019 by Dr. Dan Daly and Dr Robin Taylor, Occuity’s vision is to use the eye as a window into the health of the body.

Occuity is a UK-based medical technology company specialising in the research, design, and production of handheld non-contacting optical instruments for use in healthcare, diagnostics, and monitoring. Occuity’s scanning technology uses light to obtain precise measurements of different structures within the eye. This enables direct measurements of the eye for optometrists and ophthalmologists but also, other more general health conditions such as diabetes and Alzheimer’s Disease to be monitored.

Occuity’s Intellectual Property includes nine granted international patents with a further five patent applications covering the measurement technique and optical technology that forms the basis of the devices along with additional patents relating to the alignment and measurements within the eye.

Occuity’s mission is to create a range of non-contact, handheld devices which by their nature will be useable in a non-clinical setting by healthcare professionals and personal monitoring devices for diseases such as diabetes.

• The number of people with diabetes rose from 108 million in 1980 to 422 million in 2014, with diabetes prevalence rising more rapidly in low- and middle-income countries. An estimated 1.6 million deaths were directly caused by diabetes in 2016. (Source: World Health Organisation, 2020)
• 900,000 people with diabetes have not been diagnosed and a further third of all adults – almost 17 million people – who have pre-diabetes and are very likely to go on to develop full diabetes within 10 years.

For more information on the Occuity Indigo please visit: www.occuity.com/indigo