By Andrew Morse
ZURICH-- Novartis AG and Google Inc. are joining forces to work
on a smart contact lens that monitors blood-sugar levels and
corrects vision in a new way, the latest in a series of technology
products designed to monitor body functions.
On Monday, the two companies said Novartis's Alcon eye-care
division would license and commercialize "smart lens" technology
designed by Google[x], a development team at the search engine
giant. Financial details of the partnership weren't provided.
The smart lenses, which Google unveiled in January, are part of
a growing number of wearable technology and software products used
to monitor health and fitness. Last month, Google debuted its
Google Fit platform to track health metrics, such as sleep and
exercise, on devices running its Android mobile operating system.
Apple Inc. unveiled a similar platform called HealthKit.
The lenses contain a tiny sensor that relays data on glucose
contained in tears via an equally tiny antenna. In a news release
earlier this year, Google described the electronics in the lenses
as being "so small they look like bits of glitter" and said the
antenna is thinner than human hair.
Novartis Chief Executive Joe Jimenez said the move toward
wearable health technology, like the smart lenses, was part of a
broader trend to involve patients in managing their own health.
Such technology has the potential to lower the cost of managing
chronic disease.
"This will be a very important growth area in the future," Mr.
Jimenez said in an interview. He added that the smart lens
technology had the potential to become a "large revenue stream" for
the company.
Monitoring glucose levels through the lenses could prove to be
easier and more comprehensive than current techniques, which
generally require diabetics to prick their fingers for droplets of
blood.
About 382 million people--one in every 19--around the world have
diabetes, a class of diseases in which the body is unable to deal
with sugar, usually because of inadequate or no production of
insulin. In the U.S., more than 29 million people, or 9.3% of the
population, suffer from the disease, according to the American
Diabetes Association.
Mr. Jimenez said the smart lenses may also be used can also
correct vision in a manner similar to the lenses on autofocus
cameras.
Novartis hopes to have a prototype available for
research-and-development reviews by early 2015.
The Novartis deal underscores Google's interest in
commercializing the emerging technology being developed at the
company's skunkworks unit with the help of big partners with
established reputations in their field. For example, Google
partnered with Luxottica Group SpA and VSP Global to help bring
Google Glass, its Web-connected eyewear, to market.
Google CEO Larry Page has said he wants his company to avoid the
fate of past inventors, such as Nikola Tesla, who dreamed up
revolutionary technologies--such as the alternating-current
engine--but failed to profit from their breakthroughs.
The Novartis deal comes a day after Babak Parviz, one of the
inventors of the smart contact lens, announced he was leaving
Google[x] to join Amazon.
Analysts said the partnership made sense because of Novartis's
huge presence in the eye-care market through its Alcon unit. Alcon,
Novartis's second-largest business, posted net sales of $10.5
billion in 2013, about a fifth of overall net sales.
"Given Alcon's leading role in the market of contact lenses, it
was a smart move on Google's side to team up with this Novartis
division," to innovate this market by marrying microchip-based
technology with that of a contact lens as a carrier," Helvea
analyst Olav Zilian wrote in a research note. He rates Novartis a
"buy."
Rolfe Winkler contributed to this article.
Write to Andrew Morse at andrew.morse@wsj.com
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