Google Life Sciences got a rebrand today: It’s now called Verily. A new site is up as well to illustrate the company’s emphasis on wielding technology “to create a true picture of human health” – and “effecting prevention.”
Just as Google formed parent company “Alphabet” earlier this year, it’s clearly sticking to a literary theme with “verily,” which is a florid, Shakespearean way to say “truth, truly, confidently.”
Google Life Sciences was formed as an independent company, belonging to Alphabet, this past August. Previously, GLS was simply the life sciences division of Google X. But as the company sprawled and its emphasis on the life sciences continued to grow, its need for a life sciences-focused division emerged.
“Partnerships are at the heart of our approach,” a Verily spokesperson wrote in an email.” We expect to continue to work collaboratively with pharma, biotech, medical device and diagnostic companies, patient advocacy groups, and academic researchers for a long time to come.”
For instance, one of its early collaborations is with San Diego-based DexCom, in building out an inexpensive continuous glucose monitor that can address the Type 2 diabetes market. The new devices will meld DexCom’s diabetes savvy and sensors with Google’s – well, Verily’s – data analytics and electronics.
Another device, of course, is the much touted contact lens with an embedded glucose sensor. It also made a key hiring move this past September, snapping up the National Institutes of Mental Health’s Tom Insel to spearhead its digital approach to mental health care. Notably, Google Ventures also announced today that it expects to increase its investment emphasis on the life sciences.
To that end, Verily spells out its approach to interfacing tech and health on its new website – outlining a multidisciplinary goal to bring together engineers, physicians, chemists, behavioral scientists and other such professionals to create a harmonized approach to health analytics and treatment.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“We have to understand the ‘why’ of what people do,” CEO Andy Conrad told Stat News. “A philosopher might be as important as a chemist.”
The site divides Verily into four areas of focus that are meant to come together: Its hardware team, software team, clinical team and science team.
The idea is to shift away from “episodic, reactive healthcare” to a more preventative approach driven by advanced sensors, devices and data analytics, as it outlines in the video below:
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lyv0_GIGSbY]
“There’s no user manual for a human being,” the video says. “A new car has up to 400 different sensors. You know the oil pressure. You know how much air is in your tires. But we don’t do that with people.”
