Persperion’s noninvasive glucose-sensing test strip requires only sweat from the touch of a finger to measure a user’s glucose level, and provide a readout on the handheld device. [Prototype rendering courtesy of Persperion.]
The team aims to commercialize a sweat-based diagnostic platform technology. The initial product, a non-nvasive glucose test, uses omnipresent sweat on fingertips to measure glucose levels. This removes the need for people with diabetes to use painful fingerpricks.
Lu Yin and Alan Liu lead Persperion in developing the technology developed in a nanoengineering lab at UCSD. They aim to develop something that can detect a variety of biomarkers through sweat, beginning with glucose levels. This sensor uses trace amounts of sweat and a proprietary enzyme interaction. In addition to glucose, blood biomarkers the technology could measure include alcohol, hormones, metabolites and drugs.
“We believe that this is a platform technology,” Yin said in a post on UCSD’s website. “We had this technology and tried to figure out how we can best utilize it to help people and make an impact. Among all the biomarkers we can test through fingertip sweat, we selected glucose as our first step because the need is so big.”
How someone would use this technology
Users would insert a test strip inside a small handheld device and place their finger on the strip for tens of seconds. The system requires a fingerprick for the first use to calibrate, but no more after that. After 30 seconds, the device reads out the glucose measurement and then stores historical data. Users can reuse each test strip a few dozen times until the enzyme deactivates.
Yin and Liu say this wouldn’t necessarily replace the popular continuous glucose monitoring methods used by people with diabetes today. However, they believe it could reach tens of millions of diabetics in the U.S. without access to CGMs. Many of those people still use fingerpricks to measure gluocse levels. Persperion hopes to offer a pain-free and cost-effective replacement to fingerpricks.
Initial trials found a mean absolute relative difference (MARD) of 7.2% with the sweat sensor. This measurement of accuracy reflects well on the technology, as it demonstrates higher levels of accuracy with the sweat sensors compared to the main CGMs on the market.
Perperio has a feasibility trial underway at UCSD. The team hopes to study the device’s accuracy, reliability and ease of use before moving on to FDA trials.
“Noninvasive glucose monitoring is the holy grail of glucose monitoring,” said Liu. “It’s been attempted for decades and no one has ever succeeded. We really believe this could be it. But while we’re ambitious, we’re also not too proud to think that the first product we ever bring to market will be a blockbuster. We want to start small and start with the basics.”
What’s next?
Yin and Liu started Persperion in an effort to “make things a little bit more practical than they originally were,” the former said. They see this technology as a vehicle for that. Yin says it can be fabricated very cheaply and “doesn’t require a million things to work at the same time.” Data showed that it works across a diverse group of people, so they decided to pursue it.
The company now has five full-time employees, including Yin and Liu. With the seed funding, they moved to a hybrid lab and office space in Kearny Mesa, California. There, they’ll continue improving and testing the prototype and begin scaling up manufacturing for clinical trials.
“Everything hinges on how sensor development goes,” said Yin. “We’re tackling some issues such as the shelf life of the test strip–we want it to be able to stay in a warehouse for a year and still function properly. We want to make sure it’s accurate even when testing at high altitude or at extreme temperatures. In addition, we’re trying to shorten the time needed to press your finger on the sensor down from 30 seconds. Finally, we’re exploring ways to eliminate the need for finger prick calibration.”
