Alcon and Verily, the life sciences division of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have put on hold a project to put sensors on a contact lens to measure glucose levels.
The goal was to help people living with diabetes to better manage their disease, according to a post on Verily’s website.
However, the company explained: “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.”
The firm said it will “put the glucose-sensing lens work on hold, while continuing to focus on the smart accommodating contact lens and smart intraocular lens projects.”
“We remain committed to improving the lives of people with diabetes including through improved methods for inexpensive and unobtrusive glucose sensing to support diabetes management,” the post continues. “We are working closely with Dexcom to develop miniaturized continuous glucose monitors and with Onduo, our joint venture with Sanofi, to integrate continuous sensing into the care paradigm for people living with Type 2 diabetes.
“We’re looking forward to the next phase of development on our other two Smart Lens programs with Alcon, where we are applying our significant technical learnings and achievements to prevalent conditions in ophthalmology.”