Google is partnering with pharmaceutical giant Novartis to develop a smart contact lens to help manage diabetes.
In a deal announced Tuesday, the Alcon eye care unit of Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis will license the smart lens technology from the Google[x] research division. Under the agreement, Novartis and Google will team up to develop an actual smart lens to address certain medical problems.
– For people living with presbyopia who can no longer read without glasses, the "smart lens" has the potential to provide accommodative vision correction to help restore the eye's natural autofocus on near objects in the form of an accommodative contact lens or intraocular lens as part of the refractive cataract treatment.
Novartis expects to get the first prototypes by early next year and may start marketing the products in about five years, Novartis Chief Executive Officer Joe Jimenez said in a phone interview with Bloomberg.
The Google[x] facility operates in Mountain View, California. One of its most high profile projects has been the self driving car. It is also working closely on speech recognition, balloon powered internet access for rural areas, wind power, and technology for the Internet of Things – in which internet connected home, personal and city objects communicate with each other and take automatic action when different events take place.
The company's Google X unit, the one that came up with Google Glass and a driverless car, is working on a contact lens that can check glucose levels in diabetics.