Vanguards of Health Care by Bloomberg Intelligence
Biolinq Introduces New Silicon Tech Opens Next Chapter of Glucose and Analyte Detection
06 Nov 2025
“In a world where we have so many wearables — smart rings, watches, glucose sensors — it’s challenging to integrate all of this information,” say Biolinq founder Jared Tangney and CEO Rich Yang. “So we decided to make it available to everybody in one device.” In this Vanguards of Health Care episode, the pair speak with Bloomberg Intelligence’s analyst Matt Henriksson about Biolinq’s microsensor-based patch that uses silicon semiconductor technology to track glucose and potentially other biomarkers. They also discuss the company’s commercial strategy for type 2 diabetes patients following its FDA de Novo approval, a US regulatory designation granted to first-of-its-kind medical devices that have been shown to be safe and effective.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
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Welcome to another exciting episode of the Vanguards of Healthcare series. My name is Matt Henriksen, the medical technology analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, which is the in-house equity research platform of Bloomberg LP. We are pleased to have BioLink with us today, including CEO Rich Yang and co-founder, president, and CTO Jared Tangney.
BioLink is a privately held medical device company that is developing bio-wearables, including Shine, the first glucose sensor with no hypodermic needle for insertion. Rich and Jared, thank you both for joining us today. Glad to be here. Thank you. Thanks, Matt. And why don't we just start with both of your career paths?
Jared, I might start with you first, because as a co-founder, you took the steps to see an unmet need in really a market that seems to be innovating very, very quickly. So just curious your thoughts of how you came about founding this company.
Yeah, for sure. So the technology came out of UC San Diego, which is where I did a PhD in biomedical engineering. I met my co-founder Josh there, and we did see that diabetes was one of these markets, one of these industries that had just been transformed by technology.
But if you kind of looked at the way sensing was being done up until this point in time, the actual mechanism of sensing hadn't changed much. The electronics were changing, the wearables were changing, but the actual way of getting that information hadn't changed.
And we saw that glucose was a very valuable marker, but we also saw that there was probably dozens of other markers that could be very interesting to measure. So that's really what got us going on this pathway was glucose is incredibly valuable for people with diabetes, but how can we expand that to other markers?
And then also, how can we make it easier for people with diabetes and without diabetes to get access to their metabolic information? And so that's really what got us started on this journey.
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Chapter 2: What innovative technology does Biolinq use for glucose monitoring?
And so basically get four readings a day. Now you're doing, if I did my math right, you know, five minutes between readings, that's 288 readings without pricking your finger. So what was the technology to get? to those 288 readings accurately.
In vivo sensing is incredibly hard. For a market this big, you typically would have dozens, if not hundreds of players in market. And that just goes to show how hard it is to take something that was used for point of care testing and the technology that built billions of units per year in test strips,
It was very difficult to translate into in vivo performance with the appropriate degree of accuracy to mitigate hypoglycemia, to see all the trends in real time. That continues to be the single greatest barrier to entry for any new technology coming in. is figuring out the stabilizing chemistry, the manufacturing scale processes for in vivo sensing.
So how do you put a live enzyme on a filament or on the tip of our micro sensors, have it survive sterilization and have it survive dry storage? And that when you put it on the body, that it actually works right after warmup and be accurate enough for therapeutic decision-making.
So that continues to be a technical feat that very few have been able to accomplish and to be able to get through the FDA.
Yeah. And that's probably why now you just see the Dexcom and the Abbott's of the world being able to dominate the market because they've been able to establish that type of stabilizing chemistry, as you mentioned. With those two in the market, they're mainly in the type one space and they're starting to get into the type two diabetic patient population.
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Chapter 3: How did Jared Tangney and Rich Yang come to found Biolinq?
How has that patient opportunity changed throughout the years?
This is the largest population of people that need a solution. Finger sticks alone are not enough, right? So one or two finger sticks a day won't give you any trends, right? And for the type 2, the broader type 2 population, what is even more meaningful is context. So providing a glucose number alone...
may not be enough because for people that don't take insulin, the numbers, there's nothing they can do about them. So you're more than just a number. So we took an approach to make sure that we have glucose information combined with activity and sleep. So we were able to see and capture behavior, right? And glucose information so we can derive appropriate insights
to drive sustainable opportunities to create new habits and hopefully sustainable behavior change. So context is the key here. And in a world where we have so many wearables now, we have smart rings, smart watches, glucose sensors, and it's challenging to integrate all of this information on the back end by the user through different sources to make sense of all that information.
So we decided to make it available to everybody all in one wearable device so you don't have to synchronize date and timestamps, try to coordinate all the information and have it there and have it be insight driven. And we put inspiration into everything that we do. So to inform is one thing. To inform and inspire has been our charter.
So if we capture this information, how do we provide a better user engagement to drive healthier decisions?
And I think we'll definitely jump into how to integrate all those into one device, because even when you mentioned the ring, the watch, all those things, One of the reasons why I haven't personally gone into those is because I'm like well Do I need ten different apps for ten different readings?
So I definitely I'm gonna be personally curious about that going back to the the context for type two is it just as simple as you know, I Had an extra bagel for breakfast and I see that rise in the glucose measurements Therefore, I know I need to fix my diet better to be able to maintain the time and range and Or is there more complicated understanding of the glucose health for these patients?
This is where behavioral science comes in. So how do we support sustainable behavior change and support cognitive restructuring? Well, three things are required for that to happen. Real-time feedback passively when teachable moments arise. So how do you give that feedback in real time when a teachable moment happens? You can't tell when you're going to have a teachable moment.
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Chapter 4: What is the significance of FDA de Novo approval for Biolinq's technology?
I know I'm high. Sure. I snooze it. and they never see how long they stay high until you look at it retrospectively. Actually, in my case right now, I just left my phone on my desk.
There you go. If I'm out here at the recording studio and I have a spike because I drank some juice, I would miss out on it.
There you go. One thing I'll add, our metabolism is incredibly complicated. Getting this contextual information is incredibly insightful. I think one of the big takeaways that many people have realized is that it doesn't take this intense amount of exercise if your glucose is high to get it to come back down.
Like Rich was saying, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and your glucose can come back down into range. It's kind of that combination of moving your body and what you eat that's really important. And I mean, for example, right, you know, we're here in New York. Every time I come to New York, I got to get a New York bagel. I don't usually eat bagels, right?
But I treated myself this morning.
Yeah, if I'm wearing a sensor, I don't want to eat a bagel. But I went for a run beforehand, right? And if I go for a run, if I run for five miles afterwards, I can eat a bagel and my glucose won't rise nearly as high. So it's all of that contextual information that's really insightful.
And then even something too, like, oh, if I eat the bagel before I run or if I run before the bagel, you can see the trends and how that differs and everything.
Even the timing in order of what you eat over a meal, for example, eating the high fiber foods first, vegetables first before your protein, all of these things make a difference. And so if we do nothing further... The metabolic health literacy opportunity here is profound. Everybody should know their relationship with the foods they like, activity or lack of, and sleep.
And so because all of this leads to a pillar in metabolic health literacy. that could extend human healthspan. It is one of the most important pillars to understand. We just haven't had the tools to allow it to be easily used needle-free for mainstream adoption.
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Chapter 5: How has continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) changed diabetes management?
So we layer on sleep and activity. And so that's how we generate the insights to drive positive behavior change. Mm-hmm.
Okay, so if I got this correct, it actually can detect when you're sleeping?
Yes.
Okay, so that's got it. Okay, and that kind of gets us into more of that integrating it all into one device that we'll talk about a little bit later. And so then you have the app as well. One of the things too, just, you know, between... the product development and the recent de novo approval as just the pivotal trial. There was news about enrollment ending.
Was that data presented to the FDA before? Is that clinical data going to be provided and published at one of these diabetes conferences in the near term?
Great question. And a really quick shout out to Amy Vandenberg, who's our head of regulatory and clinical. She really set a new bar and set a new record for fastest pivotal trial in CGM history. So 58 business days, right?
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Chapter 6: What challenges did the founders face in developing their glucose sensor?
So that's quite incredible execution. Start initial of enrollment to completing the data? 58 business days. Wow. Okay. Really extraordinary. And so subjects had to come in to the clinic for 12 hours twice during their session to draw venous blood samples for 12 hours every 15 to 20 minutes.
And we had thought that there would be an incredibly high dropout rate because who would come in twice in one week to draw blood for 12 hours straight? Well, Amy did such a great job in her team in executing that we didn't have people that dropped out of the study. So we got it done in 58 business days and it's unprecedented. But yeah, we generated a tremendous amount of clinical information.
We had finger sticks that the patients did from home. We had venous blood samples on two in-clinic days. They had commercially available CGM being worn at the same time. So we generated a very profound amount of information for the FDA for review. And Amy's philosophy is to collaborate with the FDA, over-communicate.
And so when we did finish and when we did generate our data, by the way, all of the data was blinded to us, right? But to the data that was generated that we can get in front of the FDA, she actually held pre-sub meetings with the FDA, let them know how we did. So there were no surprises when we submit. There was no precedence to this, right? Yeah.
no semiconductor biosensor that's ever been approved, a needle-free intradermal sensor. So how do you go about that? So, and, you know, this is where Amy really excelled in making sure that the FDA was well-informed of every step of the way.
Yeah. And that's, I mean, the fact that you use, you know, venous draws, you use finger sticks and you use CGMs as all kind of as comparables, highlights, you know, because it's such a new technology, you want to make sure that you- The scientific rigor. Yeah, exactly. And so then, you know, But going back, is that something then the public can see that data published maybe ADA next year?
I know DTM is coming up in November. Is that something that we can all look forward to?
Yes, we intend to publish. And Jared will be speaking at the scientific sessions. We are applying to present formally. So hopefully we get accepted. And so Jared will be speaking on the clinical trial results and the... The first opportunity where we have Jared speaking on some of the pivotal trial data will be at the DTM conference.
Okay. Yeah. They made it in person again for the first time in a few years, right?
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