Google To Work With Sanofi On Diabetes Sensors

Google’s life sciences business said it plans to work with Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi on tools intended to improve diabetes care, in the latest of the company’s ventures into health-related technologies.

Google Life Sciences and Sanofi said they would collaborate on miniaturised sensors that could provide physicians with better patient health data, with the aim of moving toward continuous management of the condition, rather than treatments that merely respond to high glucose levels.

Real-time monitoring

“With new technologies emerging to provide a more continuous and real-time view of a patient’s health, we can see the promise for more proactive and effective ways to control diabetes,” said Google Life Sciences chief executive Andy Conrad in a statement.

He added that the research could help improve diabetics’ quality of life.

Sanofi said the partnership with Google was the “first of its kind”, and could “transform” care for diabetes, which affects an estimated 382 million people worldwide and has been growing rapidly in recent decades, according to the Centres for Disease Control.

Health research

Google has previously developed a glucose-monitoring contact lens for diabetics with Novartis and a wearable glucose-monitoring device with DexCom.

Other Google Life Sciences research has included a cardiac-sensing and activity-monitoring wristband and cancer-detecting nanoparticles. A separate Google company called Calico focuses on research into extending the human lifespan.

Google Life Sciences was formerly part of Google X, which handles experimental projects, but is to form its own business as part of a reorganisation that will see the company’s various operations arranged under a new umbrella company called Alphabet. Google said in a statement it expects to give the life sciences business another, “more permanent” name as part of the reorganisation.

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