Google announced the 15th of July 2014, a partnership with the European drug maker Novartis to develop a smart contact lens with the potential to monitor the wearer’s blood sugar levels.
The agreement is among recent moves into the health care sector by technology giants including Apple and Samsung as they develop devices and mobile applications to track people’s daily lives.
Novartis said that Alcon, its eye care unit, had struck a deal to license so-called smart lens technology from one of Google’s research divisions. Financial terms were not disclosed.
As part of the agreement, Alcon said it would look to create products from Google’s prototype smart contact lens, which uses miniature sensors and a radio antenna thinner than a human hair to track glucose levels. The companies did not specify how the data would be transmitted.
Information about blood sugar levels, which is particularly useful for people with diabetes, could be uploaded to smartphone devices and used by doctors and patients to monitor the data almost in real-time, according to a statement from Google issued when the company released its prototype in January.
It is unclear how long it will take Novartis to develop the technology into actual products, though the company’s chief executive, Joseph Jimenez, said the agreement was part of the drugmaker’s efforts to incorporate technology into new ways of tackling diseases.
Comentarios recientes