(Bloomberg) — Google Inc.'s life science unit is still seeking a name but it already has a foe: diabetes.
The U.S. Internet giant on Monday agreed to work with French drugmaker Sanofi (NYSE:SNY) to devise new ways of managing a disease that afflicts 382 million people worldwide, adding to recent deals with Novartis AG (NYSE:NVS) and DexCom Inc. (Nasdaq:DXCM). In separate statements, the companies didn't disclose financial details of the agreement.
Google's life science team head Andy Conrad said diabetes is precisely the kind of disease in which technology can help patients, whose bodies can't manage sugar, by keeping track of their blood and insulin measurements — and avoiding discomforts that range from daily finger pricks to more gruesome limb amputations.
"Diabetes is the first disease we're focusing on as we become an independent company," Google (Nasdaq:GOOG) said in the statement. "We're announcing a new partnership with Sanofi to move technology out of the lab more quickly and work on better ways for patients and physicians to collect, analyze, and understand all the multiple sources of information that impact diabetes management."
Google last year agreed to work with Novartis to develop contact lenses that use tiny sensors to read blood-sugar levels from tears. Tests on that product will begin next year, Conrad said in an interview. This month, Google also said it would work with DexCom on a bandage-sized sensor connected to the cloud. Sanofi, the world's biggest seller of insulin, will work on new ways of delivering the hormone, such as Bluetooth-enabled pens that let a physician monitor how much insulin their patient is using, and when.
"That's the system that we're endeavoring to build: smart insulin delivery devices, smart measurement devices, and an interface and an integrating platform that helps physicians and patients see how they're doing," said Conrad, whose division will be renamed in the coming months as a unit of Google's new holding company, Alphabet.
