Within hours of revealing a new corporate structure promising to enable Google to more ambitiously pursue health-centric projects, its Alphabet parent company did just that.
Google's life sciences team, in fact, which is part of the Alphabet unit run by CEO Larry Page and President Sergey Brin, partnered with DexCom to develop small low-cost sensors to improve diabetes management.
The companies will work together to build continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices, incorporating Google's miniaturized electronics platform with San Diego-based DexCom's sensor technology. The partnership will enable them to use data generated by these CGM products to improve outcomes and reduce the costs associated with diabetes care, the companies said.
"This partnership has the potential to change the face of diabetes technology forever," Dexcom CEO Kevin Sayer said in a prepared statement. "We believe we can introduce products that will move us beyond our core Type 1 business to become the standard of care for all people living with diabetes."
Alphabet and Dexcom will focus on creating miniaturized, low-cost and disposable CGM body-worn components that can replace finger sticks – the idea being that patients can use these tools to better control diabetes via actionable information that is also available in the cloud.
"We're committed to developing new technologies that will help move health care from reactive to proactive," Andrew Conrad, head of the life sciences team at Alphabet, added in the statement. "This collaboration is another step toward expanding monitoring options and making it easier for people with diabetes to proactively manage their health."
Google revealed the new Alphabet parent company late Monday, saying it will preside over multiple companies with Google being the largest. Alphabet will house what was Google's life sciences unit, Google X and Google Ventures, all of which are taking on more healthcare-related initiatives.
