Google Parent and Sanofi Name Diabetes Joint Venture Onduo--2nd Update
September 12 2016 - 9:07AM
Dow Jones News
By Denise Roland in London and Inti Landauro in Paris
Sanofi SA has teamed up with Verily Life Sciences LLC, a unit of
Google parent Alphabet, to develop high-tech tools for managing
diabetes.
The French pharmaceutical group Monday said the new company,
called Onduo, would combine its expertise in diabetes medicine with
Verily's knowledge of miniaturized electronics, analytics and
software development. The companies didn't disclose the financial
details of the deal.
The deal is the latest sign of convergence between Silicon
Valley and the pharmaceutical industry as technology companies aim
to tap ever-higher demand for health care products from aging
populations, while drugmakers seek alternatives to the lengthy and
risk-laden process of developing new medicines to treat
disease.
Sanofi and Google have already spent a year exploring the
potential of high-tech devices to improve diabetes care by for
example using microchips to continuously monitor blood sugar levels
in patients. Monday's deal is the concrete result of that work,
according to a company spokeswoman.
People with diabetes must monitor their food intake and exercise
levels as well as sticking to an often complex treatment regimen to
manage the disease. Stefan Oelrich, head of diabetes at Sanofi,
said Onduo would aim to bring these different aspects of diabetes
treatment together in a single product.
Such a product could also attract interest from the governments,
employers and insurers who pay for health care by providing a tool
for measuring the outcomes of various treatments, he added.
Sanofi said the collaboration would initially focus on type two
diabetes, the much more common form of the disease. This affects
around 90% of all diabetes patients and occurs when the body
produces insulin but is unable to use it effectively. In the early
stages it can be managed by switching to a healthier diet and
increasing exercise, but as it progresses treatment becomes more
complex and expensive, ultimately involving carefully-managed
insulin injections.
Paris-based Sanofi is one of the world's biggest makers of
diabetes drugs, though that part of the business is under pressure
from increasingly cost-conscious health systems. The company
expects revenue from diabetes drugs to decline over the coming
years as competition between insulin makers intensifies.
Mr. Oelrich said one attraction of the Verily collaboration for
Sanofi is that it could yield a new product much faster than
traditional drug development. He expects Onduo to launch its first
product within two to three years, versus the roughly 10 years it
takes to develop a new medicine.
The two companies appointed Joshua Riff, formerly a senior
executive at UnitedHealth Group's Optum, as the chief executive of
Onduo, which will be based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Diabetes, a fast-growing disease expected to affect 592 million
people world-wide by 2035, is a hot area for pharmaceutical and
tech tie-ups. Last year Novo Nordisk A/S and IBM's Watson Health
started working together on a "virtual doctor" that could dispense
treatment advice such as insulin dosage. And Verily and Novartis AG
are codeveloping a "smart contact lens" to monitor blood-sugar
levels in people with diabetes.
Google has joined forces with big pharmaceutical companies
across a broad range of disease areas in recent years. Those
collaborations include a tie-up with GlaxoSmithKline PLC to develop
"bioelectronic" treatments that work on nerve pathways to address
medical issues, a collaboration with Johnson & Johnson to
develop robots to assist surgeons, and a project with Biogen Idec
Inc. to analyze why multiple sclerosis progresses differently from
patient to patient.
Write to Denise Roland at Denise.Roland@wsj.com and Inti
Landauro at inti.landauro@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 12, 2016 08:52 ET (12:52 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY)
Historical Stock Chart
From Aug 2024 to Sep 2024
Sanofi (NASDAQ:SNY)
Historical Stock Chart
From Sep 2023 to Sep 2024