Medtech startup from Copenhagen, Hedia, has just raised an additional €3 million for its technology to manage diabetes. The company is backed by Novo-heirs, and we reckoned it was one to watch back in 2019.
Founded in 2016 by husband-and-wife duo Peter Lucas and Christina Kildentoft, alongside business partner Andreas Jespensgaard, Hedia has developed a piece of medical software that aims to improve the management of insulin-requiring diabetes. Lucas, who is himself a type 1 diabetic, came up with the idea as a way to improve health outcomes for diabetes patients, such as stabilising blood glucose levels.
The Hedia app contains a CE-marked insulin calculator, giving personalized insulin doses recommendations for its users. The recommendations are based on the user’s meals, physical activities, and current blood sugar level. By assisting with this difficult and time-consuming everyday task for the user, the hope is to give the user a stable blood sugar level for a longer period of time. This is a regulated medical device.
Peter Lucas said: “My father also had type1 diabetes, and I got the diagnosis in my twenties. This is a very time-consuming disease if you don’t get the right help of managing it.”
The fresh funding injection will help the company expand in its key European markets of the UK and Germany, and support work on clinical studies – these studies are crucial for the company’s future international growth plan.
As the product is a medical device, to sell it to national health services and insurance companies means that Hedia needs clinical studies on the effect of the product. One of Hedia’s upcoming clinical studies involves an algorithm for the app that will predict 30 minutes into the future to give the user a more accurate insulin dosage recommendation.
