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| Verily's Andrew Conrad |
Since its entry into life sciences in 2012, Alphabet ($GOOG) has publicized several ambitious projects that experts are calling more "science fiction" than science--including the development of the "Tricorder," a diagnostic device straight out of Star Trek. But, despite the dubious achievability of its more futuristic efforts, the Silicon Valley giant's earliest promise may lie in its more modest projects.
In addition to the Tricorder, which is built on the idea of nanoparticles in a patient's bloodstream to detect cancer cells, Google Life Sciences, now known as Verily, announced two other major projects to transform the medical landscape. These include its Baseline study, aimed at gathering molecular and genetic data to catch cancer and heart disease early on, and a smart contact lens to measure the glucose content of tears in people with diabetes.
Former employees say the Tricorder is struggling, while Tufts chemistry professor David Walt calls it "science fantasy," Stat reported. As for the smart contact lens, multiple companies are working on detecting glucose levels in tears, but none has found a way to get glucose readings from tears that reflect blood glucose levels, said John Smith, formerly the CSO of Johnson & Johnson's ($JNJ) LifeScan unit, as quoted by Stat.
Employees as well as independent experts question the usefulness of Baseline, which will collect various data from 10,000 people over 5 years. The chief concern is that the database will oversimplify human biology and highlight "trivial or false" trends in the data. "Biology is really complex. People operate with very different software codes," Tufts' Walt said, as quoted by Stat. And here lies the problem: Verily is attempting to apply Silicon Valley's bread and butter--calculations and coding--to human biology, which can be complex and unpredictable.
"What (Verily is) really good at is physical measurements--things like temperature, pulse rate, activity level," Walt told Stat. "They are not particularly good at … the chemical and the biological stuff."
So what is Verily good at? It's collaborating with Dexcom on a miniaturized continuous glucose monitor that the duo aims to launch in 2018. They teamed up last August and hope to follow up the first-gen product with a disposable bandage-sized glucose monitor, to be launched in 2020 or 2021. And in December 2015, Verily formally announced Verb, a joint venture with J&J to work on robotic surgery.
While Verb has tended to keep mum on its activities, Dr. Ken Drazan, a former J&J exec who helped set up the JV, spoke positively about Verily chief Andrew Conrad, telling Stat that "Trying to create a life sciences company inside a software company is no trivial challenge. He's probably one of the few people who has a reasonable shot at it." And in May, J&J's EVP and Worldwide Chairman of Medical Devices, Gary Pruden, said we should expect an "important milestone at the end of the year when we transition from concept development to full product development." At that time, Verb should be ready to share how its surgical robotics system works, looks and feels, he added.
- read the Stat story