Verily, Alcon, Halt Project to Create a Glucose-Measuring Contact Lens; Other Eye-Monitoring Projects Continue

Google’s life sciences company Verily and Alcon have decided to halt their work on a smart contact lens to measure glucose levels in users with diabetes. 

In a blog post, Verily chief technical officer Brian Otis, stated: “Our clinical work on the glucose-sensing lens demonstrated that there was insufficient consistency in our measurements of the correlation between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations to support the requirements of a medical device. In part, this was associated with the challenges of obtaining reliable tear glucose readings in the complex on-eye environment.”

Mr. Otis did point out that it will continue to work with Alcon, focusing on smart accommodating contact lens and smart intraocular lens projects for presbyopia and for improving sight following cataract surgery, respectively.

“We have developed methods to integrate wireless electronics and miniaturized sensors into a contact lens and built thousands of lenses in numerous form factors. … We’re looking forward to the next phase of development on our other two Smart Lens programs with Alcon, where we are applying all our significant technical learnings and achievements to prevalent conditions in ophthalmology.”