After the recent big news about Google reinventing itself as Alphabet, Google has now announced that it will be partnering up with Dexcom, a leading glucose-monitoring company. This is Google's second major diabetes venture, the first being a partnership with Novartis where both companies will be developing a smart contact lens that helps monitor glucose levels continuously from the comfort of an individual's eyeball.
Dexcom and Google will work together to make smaller, better devices for people with diabetes. It is believed that combining the technology of Dexcom with the miniaturised electronics from Google will make it possible for the two to develop something that is extremely low cost and very small, as pointed out by Dexcom Vice President Steve Pacelli.
Google's holding company Alphabet will cover both Life Sciences and Calico, a group that aspires to tackle the problem of ageing. With the new restructuring, Life Sciences has been granted a promotion per se as it will now be broken out from Google X "moonshot": research division and will become its own company owned by Alphabet.
The Google-Dexcom partnership will focus on making a continuous glucose monitor that’s cheaper, more convenient and disposable. The sensor will be about the size of a Band-Aid that can be placed on the skin to monitor blood sugar levels on a constant basis without the hassle of finger pricks. The plan is to connect Dexcom’s sensors and algorithms with Google hardware and its cloud as well as its robust data platform.
Google was the one to initiate this partnership and it is evident that Alphabet's healthcare and Life Sciences group is definitely a priority for Google. Dexcom will still retain its fifth generation monitor but according to Pacelli, the Google-Dexcom partnership will come out with an initial product in two to three years and a home-run product a few years after that.
“The Google exercise will be additive to everything else on our core,” Pacelli explains.
The healthcare industry and the diabetes patient population will definitely be on the look-out for Google's new, smaller, cheaper and disposable glucose monitor.
Source: Forbes
Image Credit: Flickr
