French drugmaker Sanofi has teamed up with Alphabet’s US-based life sciences company Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) to launch of a joint-venture – Onduo – with the aim of improving the management of diabetes.
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The new JV will use Verily’s experience in miniaturized electronics, analytics, and consumer software development, as well as Sanofi’s clinical expertise to develop novel treatments for diabetes patients.
Onduo will persevere to assist individuals who suffer from diabetes to lead a healthy and fuller life by creating “comprehensive solutions” that will deploy medicine, software, professional care and devices to aid seamless and efficient management of diseases.
Sanofi, which made the announcement on Monday, said past year it was working on a partnership with Google in diabetes. Over time, Onduo plans to expand its focus to include type 1 diabetes. Lifestyle changes-such as diet and exercise-are also important to successful diabetes management, and those changes are hard to make in the first place, and even more hard to stick to over the long haul. This has announced a joint venture with French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi to address diabetes, one of the developed world’s biggest health problems. Initially, the new company would focus on type-two diabetes, which is more common form of disease than type-one diabetes.
The pharma company’s head of diabetes and cardiovascular, Peter Guenter, said Ondua will adopt a more “service-centric” approach compared to a conventional drugmaker.
“Our goal is to connect the dots for healthcare providers on the “moments of truth” that happen outside of the clinical setting, and to help people manage diabetes on a daily basis”, Dr. Jessica Mega, chief medical officer of Verily said in a statement.
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Oelrich said that competition in the diabetes market will be evident due to the presence of biosimilars. However, Sanofi said it invested $248 million in the venture, which the company said is a 50 percent stake, according to Reuters. Expecting increasing threat from biosimilars to strike the diabetes market soon, Sanofi has already slashed its sales forecast of Lantus for this year and beyond. Riff most recently served as senior vice president of prevention and wellbeing at Optum, the health services company of UnitedHealth Group. “There’s increased competition on price”.
