Google teams up with French drugmaker Sanofi to improve diabetes treatment

Google Life Sciences – soon to become its own business under Google's Alphabet holding company – will collaborate with Sanofi explore how diabetes care can be improved, better understood and made more cost effective with new tools and technology.

 

The company, founded to expand Google’s influence beyond the internet, has previously collaborated with a number of pharmaceutical companies on reaching healthcare solutions.

 

It has developed a contact lens to help diabetics track blood glucose levels with Novartis AG and created a wearable continuous glucose-monitoring device in collaboration with DexCom Inc.

 

Chief executive of the life sciences team, Andy Conrad, said: “With new technologies emerging to provide a more continuous and real-time view of a patient’s health, we can see the promise for more proactive and effective ways to control diabetes.

 

“Together with Sanofi, we believe diabetes management can be simpler and more convenient, which may help patients achieve an improved quality of life.”

 

Sales of diabetes treatments accounted for around 20 per cent of Sanofi's €9.4bn (£6.9bn) total sales in the second quarter, but the firm has struggled to gain access into the US market for its diabetes medications.

 

The company’s chief executive Olivier Brandicourt MD said the firm’s “first-of-its-kind” partnership with Google had the potential to “transform” care for the condition which is expected to affect 592m people by 2035, according to the International Diabetes Federation.