Google has partnered with Novartis, the Swiss pharmaceutical company, to work on commercialisation of the smart contact lenses, currently in development in Google X Labs.
Novartis will be licensing Google’s product and using it for diabetic patients. The contact lenses analyse tear fluid from the user, providing a real-time measurement of glucose levels wirelessly to their smartphone.
Google has been working on the smart contact lenses alongside other efforts in the health industry. Google works with 23 and Me, a biotechnology company offering data on genetics and what illnesses might run in the family.
Unfortunately, the FDA stands in the way of some of Novartis’ lofty ambitions for the contact lenses, in the same way they stood in front of 23 and Me, when they tried to get genetic testing kits out to people in the United States.
Novartis wants to go beyond monitoring with the smart contact lenses, offering treatment for people with presbyopia, for people who struggle to view things without glasses, and is even looking into fitting the contact lenses into the eye.
All of this will need to be approved by the FDA, but it is nice to see Novartis not just sitting on the technology, but instead trying to implement different features, for customers to get more from the smart contact lenses.
Several technology companies have shown their hand in the health business, Apple and Google both announced health services for iOS and Android, both will connect to other health apps available on the platform.
The smart contact lenses are a more niche product, but we expect Google has more plans for health in the next few years. Google’s CEO Larry Page has talked about regulation in the health industry and how data mining health records could be an important factor in the growth of medicine in the next few years.
