QuLab’s Nanotechnology Monitors Multiple Metabolites on One Minimally-Invasive Patch
CEO Idan Tamir and his team in Israel are developing a novel device that goes beyond the continuous glucose monitor (CGM) to provide people with diabetes with a fuller picture of their health.
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The Challenge
To monitor a complex condition like diabetes many health professionals understand that glucose is just one part of the metabolic picture. Other important, informative metabolites include ketone bodies and lactate. Idan Tamir, CEO of QuLab, gives glucose and ketone bodies as an example: “One is a carbohydrate, and the other is a breakdown product of fat. They are our two main sources of energy. Kind of like a hybrid car. You want to use them both in a coordinated way to make sure your metabolism is balanced.” However, typical monitoring devices are only focused on glucose. “It becomes a problem of real estate,” says Tamir. “There is just so much space on a sensor, on a filament, that one can occupy with different sensing technologies,” he adds.
QuLab solved this real estate problem with innovative nanotechnology. Tamir likens the current CGM products on the market to black and white televisions, only delivering part of the picture. But with more sensors and data fusion, a full-color health picture comes into view. They tackled the dual challenges of building a business and building the product and are now on their way to testing it in humans. They anticipate their patch will be ready for the market within two years.
Origin Story
QuLab has its origins at Tel Aviv University where Sharon Lefler developed technology focused on monitoring glucose. Tamir, who had previously worked for other companies on point-of-care diagnostics, was brought on to develop the business and commercialize the technology.
“A company run out of a university lab is kind of an oxymoron,” says Tamir. “It doesn’t work.” In 2018, two years after the founding of the company, they became independent and moved from the university to their current offices in Herzliya, a tech hub bordering Tel Aviv. “We took some science from the university and then started playing with it and making modifications to further develop and commercialize it,” says Tamir. The device they wanted to create was complex and ambitious. It incorporated enzymes along with hardware and software components and would eventually need to be fabricated at a large scale and pass regulatory approvals to be used as a medical device. In order to start achieving this goal, they assembled a versatile team heavy with PhDs. “We found people across multiple disciplines and technologies,” says Tamir. “We made sure to have some sort of overlap and complementarity in capabilities,” he adds. Consequently, their team blends the deep expertise of an academic lab with the nimble energy of a startup where employees wear multiple hats.
What They Built
QuLab’s ambition was to create a patch to electronically monitor multiple metabolites continuously and in parallel. Other microprobe-based products that monitor glucose rely on a sensor array that penetrates the skin. “The reason for the array is that each microprobe provides a certain current and then it all adds up to a significant signal. That means you have to introduce 10 or 20 microprobes into the skin,” says Tamir. QuLab wanted something less invasive. In order to achieve this, they developed tunable microprobe sensors.
In typical sensors, the amplification of a signal comes with the amplification of noise. In order to avoid that, QuLab sensors amplify changes in electrochemical potential using a special transistor. “A transistor amplifies the core signal and we can tune it. We can amplify it more or less depending on which analyte concentration range we want to target,” says Tamir. The amplification component allows the probes to get a reliable and robust signal using only one probe per metabolite. The final product will feature a single patch harboring a few probes that monitor several different metabolites in parallel. Taken together, this data presents a holistic image — like color television. “If we’re monitoring glucose, we can also monitor its breakdown product like lactate and also ketone bodies,” says Tamir. “This makes a big difference.”
Minimally-invasive probes are another innovation of QuLab’s sensors. The filaments — a little bit thicker than a hair — are relatively painless when inserted in the skin. For Tamir, he observed how painful traditional CGM devices could be when his daughter, who was pregnant and at risk for gestational diabetes, rejected two different patches because they were painful and caused bleeding. “That made me understand that it’s really important to minimize the pain and the invasiveness of the device,” says Tamir. The probes — which only penetrate one and half millimeters into the skin — are also solid, unlike the flexible filaments in many other sensors. “There are all kinds of artifacts that appear in other sensor systems because the sensors are placed on a flexible filament,” says Tamir. QuLab sensors sit on solid probes that don’t move in the skin, a feat they accomplished through developing a metallic support that can bend without breaking.
Where They Are in the Process
As they developed their product, scalability and reproducibility were critical considerations. “We had to think about this as a medical device that can be manufactured at a large scale and at a low cost,” says Tamir. “All these challenges were there from the beginning.” While developing a scalable product, QuLab worked with nanotechnology centers at different universities and then larger nanotechnology centers where they were able to complete multiple fabrication steps. At present, they are working on the realization of their product with IMEC in Belgium and Tower Semiconductor in Israel. In the mechanical production of the product, QuLab continues to innovate. Whereas many current sensors on the market screenprint their sensors, QuLab nanoprints their sensors using an inkjet technology. “We have an inkjet that points where the sensor is and prints the specific enzyme,” says Tamir.
In December, QuLab plans to conduct studies in a hospital in Israel on healthy volunteers to ensure that the devices penetrate the skin without breaking and that the mechanics work properly. Previously, these studies were done on pigs. Their main project at the moment is focused on lactate monitoring, a field that’s much less competitive than glucose monitoring. “Lactate is a distress signal of the body,” says Tamir, who explains that rising lactate levels often indicate the development of severe infection (e.g., that may lead to sepsis), organ failure, or extreme muscle fatigue. In this project, they’re focused on monitoring patients in hospitals who have infections or are recovering from transplantation. Currently, there are no marketed devices that allow for continuous lactate monitoring. “Rising lactate has to do with other vital signs and the overall situation of the patient,” says Tamir. And here, QuLab’s holistic aims come into view: “It’s all about the larger picture,” says Tamir, “not just monitoring one thing out of context. It has to be in context.”
Our Take
QuLab’s innovative technology sets it apart from other products in the field. The company points a way forward by expanding continuous glucose monitoring to include other metabolites. In doing so, this promises to address diabetes management more holistically by utilizing a wider range of data that can be analyzed by patients, healthcare providers, and AI to more accurately inform the management and treatment of one’s condition. And its application is not limited to diabetes. Their work with lactate monitoring shows how it can be used in a hospital setting to provide a new service for patients in distress. It’s an original tool for extracting health metrics from the body and the sky’s the limit in terms of how those metrics can be leveraged in the management of one’s health. Color television is here.
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Published: Dec 14, 2023