Google, Sanofi Partner on New Diabetes R&D Project

Google Life Sciences, the search giant’s medical research division, struck a deal with French pharmaceutical company Sanofi to develop potential treatments for diabetes.

Both companies “will develop ways to store and analyze glucose levels in real time,” writes Bloomberg Business [1]. Some of the potential projects that could emerge as a result may be “smart insulin delivery devices” and “smart measurement devices,” according to the report.

The conjunction of devices that continuously monitor glucose with the ability to upload data to the cloud would help physicians and patients move towards more proactive and preventative methods in managing this disease.

Andy Conrad, the head of Google Life Sciences, told Bloomberg, “Diabetics are far more likely to have heart attacks, they’re far more likely to have cancer, and they’re 15 times more likely to have their foot cut off because of vascular issues.”

Conrad continued, saying finding a way to prevent strong blood sugar fluctuations could lead to a way to prevent most of these diabetes-associated issues.

Re/Code notes [2] this continues Google’s interest in combatting this disease.

A few weeks ago, the company signed a deal [3] with medical device manufacturer DexCom to create pint-sized sensors that can track glucose levels for type 1 and type 2 diabetes patients in real time.

Also, Google and Novartis are working on smart-contact lenses [4] that can monitor glucose levels.

The hope is that all of these endeavors can become viable replacements for the current finger-stick tests for diabetes.

Financial details and specific deadlines were not given when the announcement was made.

• Conference agenda announced:

The highly anticipated educational tracks for the 2015 R&D; 100 Awards & Technology Conference feature 28 sessions, plus keynote speakers Dean Kamen and Oak Ridge National Laboratory Director Thom Mason. Learn more [5].