TORONTO – Google’s Life Sciences division has partnered with health care company DexCom to develop a series of glucose monitoring devices designed to be smaller and more affordable than options currently on the market.
Under the agreement, the companies will work together to develop bandage-sized, disposable monitors that would connect to the cloud to collect data.
“We’re committed to developing new technologies that will help move health care from reactive to proactive,” said Andrew Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Google, in a statement.
“This collaboration is another step towards expanding monitoring options and making it easier for people with diabetes to proactively manage their health.”
This isn’t the first glucose monitoring device the tech giant has dabbled with.
In 2014, Google unveiled a smart contact lens measures the glucose levels in users’ tears using a minuscule sensor and a wireless transmitter.
Though Google said the prototype would take at least five years to reach consumers, the company partnered with Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis in July 2014 to help develop the contact lens for the consumer market.
READ MORE: Google teams up with Novartis on contact lens glucose monitor
Other non-needle glucose monitoring systems have also been tested, including a similar contact lens by Netherlands-based NovioSense, a minuscule, flexible spring that is tucked under an eyelid. Israel-based OrSense has already tested a thumb cuff, and there have been early designs for tattoos and saliva sensors.
A watch-style monitor was approved by the FDA in 2001, but patients said the low-level electric currents pulling fluid from their skin was painful, and it was buggy.
Google’s announcement is the first after revealing a radically different operating structure under a new holding company called Alphabet Inc. The move separates Google’s well-known web companies like its search engine, YouTube, and Chrome from its research and investment divisions.
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