Sanofi, Alphabet’s Verily create US$500 mn diabetes-focused joint venture
French pharmaceutical company Sanofi and Verily, the life sciences research unit of Google parent company Alphabet Inc., have teamed up to form a US$500-million joint venture company that will focus on diabetes management and care improvement.
Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the US, the joint venture, called Onduo, aims to combine devices, software, medicine, and professional care in order to develop comprehensive solutions for simple and intelligent disease management.
The new joint venture company will be able to bring innovative treatments to help people with diabetes live full, healthy lives through Verily’s experience in miniaturized electronics, analytics, and consumer software development, and Sanofi’s clinical expertise and experience. Onduo will operate under the leadership of its newly-appointed Chief Executive Officer, Joshua Riff, M.D., M.B.A.
“From monitoring food intake to testing glucose levels to actively seeking medical care, the challenges both on the physical and mental well-being of a person living with diabetes are incredibly difficult,” said Dr. Riff, Onduo CEO.“We want to develop solutions that allow people living with diabetes to focus on the things they love and enjoy in life by providing tools to make dealing with their diabetes less burdensome.”
Onduo will initially focus on the type 2 diabetes community, particularly on developing solutions ranging from improved medication management to improved habits and goals that could help people make better day-to-day health decisions.
The company plans to expand its focus in the future to include the type 1 diabetes community and then eventually to those at risk of developing diabetes with the goal of improving the prevention of the disease.
“The new company Sanofi and Verily invested in will adopt a more service-centric approach and support doctors in their efforts to treat their patients more effectively. In addition to developing innovative therapies for diabetes which will remain a key focus for Sanofi, we see these solutions which combine innovative therapies and services as the future for diabetes care. We believe this will help societies cope with the burden of this epidemic,”said Peter Guenter, Executive Vice President, Head, Global Diabetes & Cardiovascular Business Unit, Sanofi.
Onduo is also taking a multi-stakeholder approach to diabetes management by involving the diabetes community, clinicians, payers and healthcare professionals in the product development process.
Sutter Health of Northern California and Allegheny Health Network of western Pennsylvania are among the first healthcare networks to collaborate with Verily and Onduo to test the Onduo platform with healthcare professionals and people with type 2 diabetes in a clinical care setting.
Additionally, Onduo is discussing with patient advocacy groups like Taking Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD) to provide input on future product designs.
Category: Features, Pharmaceuticals