Google, Novartis team up on 'smart' contact lens for health

Google will team with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis to develop its "smart" contact lens for diabetics and people whose eyes are losing the ability to focus, the companies said late Monday.

In January, the Mountain View search engine's special projects arm, GoogleX, said it was designing a contact lens that would help diabetics by measuring blood sugar levels in users' tears. At the time, it acknowledged that it couldn't carry out the ambitious project on its own.

"We're not going to do this alone: we plan to look for partners who are experts in bringing products like this to market," wrote project co-founders Brian Otis and Babak Parviz. "These partners will use our technology for a smart contact lens and develop apps that would make the measurements available to the wearer and their doctor."

Now, Novartis said it will license the technology for the contact lens, which includes noninvasive sensors, microchips and other miniaturized electronics. The company is interested in helping diabetics manage their disease, but also in helping people with presbyopia, or the gradual loss of the eyes' ability to focus on nearby objects, who can no longer read without glasses. The lens, Novartis said, could help provide vision correction to restore the eye's natural autofocus.

Google will work with Novartis' eye-care division, Alcon. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Our dream is to use the latest technology in the miniaturization of electronics to help improve the quality of life for millions of people," Sergey Brin, Google's co-founder, said. "We are very excited to work with Novartis to make this dream come true."

Diabetes is an enormous and growing health problem worldwide. About 382 million people have diabetes globally, a number that is expected to rise to 592 million by 2035, according to the International Diabetes Foundation. There are two forms of the disease, and the most common one, Type 2, is increasing in every country.