Arecor Ltd has announced that it has secured an investment for the clinical development of its diabetes speciality pharma portfolio. New and existing investors contributed to the investment that totals £6.0 million.

Currently, Arecor is a leading UK-based developer of superior biopharmaceuticals through the application of a formulation technology platform.

Leading UK institutional investors, Calculus Capital, Downing Ventures and Albion Capital, contributed to the £6.0 million equity investment. Likewise, Arecor’s existing investors participated significantly.

The company’s next-generation diabetes product pipeline offers exciting new progress in the field of diabetes. It aims to enable important new treatment regimens. Equally, it aims to offer greater control of blood glucose to diabetes patients.

The pipeline includes three main developments.

Firstly, proprietary formulations of insulin analogues that are ultra-rapid acting and more closely match a healthy body’s physiological response to blood glucose control. Next, highly concentrated rapid acting insulin optimised for the next generation of body-worn miniaturised delivery devices, including the artificial pancreas. Finally, a stable aqueous ready to use glucagon used in an emergency to treat severe hypoglycaemia and enabling future use in bi-hormonal artificial pancreas systems.

The International Diabetes Federation estimates that 425 million people currently live with diabetes.

In addition, it estimates that the economic impact of diabetes exceeds $1 trillion.

Arecor hopes that its products will contribute significantly to addressing this challenge. Arecor will be looking to partner with specialist diabetes companies in the later stages of development.

Arecor’s Chief Executive Officer, Dr Sarah Howell, has said: “We are delighted to have secured the investment that we need to progress our lead diabetes programmes through the key stages of clinical development.

“With diabetes reaching epidemic proportions worldwide and with close to half a billion people living with the condition today, the opportunity of advancing our diabetes products into human clinical trials and their potential to significantly improve the treatment of this debilitating disease, represents a very exciting and ground-breaking proposition”.

Arecor is not a listed company. However, its investors do have some interesting portfolios.

Albion Capital has invested in several companies in the healthcare sector. These include Abcodia, Achilles Therapeutics and Oxford Immunotec, as well as several care homes. Likewise, Calculus capital also invests in several healthcare companies such as Arecor and Oxford BioTherapeutics.