Google enters life sciences

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Google is today not only a huge weapon for the promotion of medicines and pharmaceutical companies, but also a pharmaceutical company. Recently, the company has been taking more and more initiatives in the life sciences sector.

Diversification of Google’s activities also included pharmacy

In 2015 Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of the giant, decided to separate Google’s core online business from smaller projects. X Lab and Calico were linked to the life sciences sector. Together with other companies, they were incorporated into the Alphabet conglomerate. In general, it deals with areas such as technology, life sciences, investment and research.

X Lab focuses on the development of new technologies aimed at solving the most important problems of the modern world. Calico is a company dealing with aging processes and solutions dedicated to this trend. The company focuses on the research of many diseases of the elderly – neurodegenerative diseases and cancer.

Verily’s gaining momentum

Verily Life Sciences, on the other hand, is one of Google’s ideas and is now becoming more and more independent. The company is currently working with pharmaceutical companies on a variety of projects: from vaccine development, intelligent contact lenses (Alcon), surgical robotics solutions (Johnson & Johnson) to early detection of chronic diseases (Merck Sharp & Dohme) and diabetes (cooperation with Sanofi). Together with GlaxoSmithKline, Verily also established Galvani Bioelectronics. In this way, he became the owner of a pharmaceutical company that develops and markets bioelectronic pharmaceutical products that treat illnesses with miniature devices implanted into the patient’s body. These devices irritate nerve cells with electrical signals. They are expected to appear on the world market in 2023.

Verily is also active in the field of clinical trials. In 2017, it created Baseline, which is a platform for the communication of patients and trial participants with research entities. The patient can log in to the database and be linked to studies that are relevant to him/her. The added value is in increasing the efficiency of data collection and thus bringing products to market faster. This advantage seems to be attractive to Google’s pharmaceutical partners. In October 2019 Verily has signed a partnership agreement with Color to provide information on genetic test results to test subjects.

In 2017, revenues from these “non-IT” activities of Google reached $1.2 billion, while revenues from IT activity – $110.9 billion.