Google Life Sciences Lures Partners, Top Biotech Minds With Big Data Expertise
Since Google Life Sciences (GLS) emerged as a stand-alone entity under the reconceptualized Alphabet umbrella, it has set to work attracting some of the biggest names in medical research and has formed partnerships with leading medical device companies in pursuit of lofty and difficult goals. According to an article in Nature, industry-leading big data resources and diversified interests put it ahead of similar tech giants — Microsoft, IBM, and Apple — looking to invest heavily in next-generation healthcare.
In past decades, there has been a stigma attached to top research minds collaborating with or joining large corporate entities. Academic research was “pure research,” and corporate-driven science was stifling and inflexible.
This past year, some of the top names in medical research and academic leadership have left established careers and made the move to GLS. Thomas Insel is leaving his directorship at the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) in November, and prominent cardiologist Jessica Mega took a leave of absence from her academic career at Harvard, starting last year, to pursue a project with GLS.
So what changed?
Top research professionals who spoke to Nature maintain that the allure of Google’s varied resources was plucking top researchers from prominent academic and government posts. More than just higher salaries, GLS offers access to some of the best minds in software and hardware engineering, and scientists who’ve made the move are doing so in anticipation that health data analytics are the future of healthcare and disease management.
John De Lemos, a colleague of Mega, told Forbes last year that Silicon Valley was entering the healthcare sector in a “big way,” and that most tech companies were developing initiatives to develop biosensors and multi-level data analytics. Academic researchers couldn’t compete.
“There is tremendous potential for new, clinically relevant insights to be gained through these [big data] approaches, but there won’t be any shortcuts to doing good science here, “said De Lemos, who added that the “best case scenario” was industry-leading resources, technology, and analytics combined with academic expertise in study design.
Mega told Nature, “What I find compelling is the immersion of people with strong technology backgrounds — hardware and software engineers — sitting next to people like myself. The impact feels very, very large.”
In addition to attracting top individuals, GLS has been collecting partnerships with biotech companies, particularly those developing technology to treat and manage diabetes using data collection and analytics.
GLS will be working with Sanofi to develop better diabetes management software, and a partnership with Novartis to monitor glucose through contact lenses is on its way to clinical trial. A deal with Dexcom plans to incorporate GLS’s data platform into future models of the former’s continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) systems.
While Apple’s ResearchKit and IBM’s Watson are also making headway in their endeavors into the healthcare analytics, Nature reports that they’re simply not expending the same resources — Nature estimates GLS’ investment at more than $1 billion per year — and diversifying their projects like GLS.
According to Nature, all signs point to continued growth and leadership for GLS. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute, remarked, “I have a feeling we’re going to see a lot more recruitment of leading lights.”