Google halts plan to manufacture glucose-sensitive contact lenses

The Google Health-Tech group will continue to work on a contact lens suitable for presbyopia and an intelligent intraocular lens to improve vision after cataract surgery. (Reuters)

Google's parent company, Alphabet, has suspended its glucose-sensitive contact lens manufacturing project for people with diabetes due to unsatisfactory clinical work. The goal of the project was to transform contact lenses into a state-of-the-art medical device that can measure blood sugar by detecting blood sugar in tears. As part of this project, Verily entered into a partnership with Alcon, the ophthalmology division of Novartis, in 2014.

"Our clinical work on glucose sensing lenses demonstrated that the consistency of our correlation measurements between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations was insufficient to meet the requirements of a medical device," said Brian Otis. , technical manager at Verily. a blog post on Friday. This was partly related to the difficulties encountered in obtaining reliable readings of lacrimal glucose in the complex ocular environment.

"For example, we found that the interference of biomolecules in tears posed problems in obtaining accurate glucose measurements from the small amounts of glucose contained in the tear film. "In addition, our clinical studies have highlighted the difficulties in achieving the steady-state conditions necessary for a reliable reading of lacrimal glucose," Otis added.

Google's health-tech group will continue its work on a presbyopic-ready contact lens and an intelligent intraocular lens to improve vision after cataract surgery, Otis said. In addition to Google, several other technology companies have also launched their initiatives in the health sector, including Apple, which has introduced cardiac monitoring features in the Apple Watch.