Novartis Teams with Google to Develop Multiple Uses for “Smart” Lenses

Company exec looks toward a day when reading glasses are obsolete.

Novartis International plans to team with Google to develop applications for “smart” contact lenses that the company expects to revolutionize eyecare. “We’re very focused on bringing to market the gluco-sensing smart lens for diabetics and auto-focus technology for presbyopics — like my parents and in a few years myself,” says Jeff George, global head of the company’s Alcon subsidiary. “But at the same time, there are other ocular indications,” he tells Fortune magazine. “There’s about 60 million people around the world who have glaucoma, and this sensing smart-lens technology could continuously monitor intra-operative eye pressure, which is what is controlled by medicines that treat glaucoma like prostaglandins.”

Read more and see images at Fortune