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Verily’s Pharmaceutical Ties
Verily Life Sciences is one of those Alphabet ideas now launched into independent status. Initially begun as a series of projects exploring the use of technologies including miniaturization and machine learning to create “wearable” devices such as smart lenses, Verily now partners with a number of pharmaceutical companies that develop vaccines on projects ranging from smart lenses with Alcon (a subsidiary of Novartis) and surgical robotics with Johnson & Johnson to early identification and intervention in chronic diseases with Merck Sharp & Dohme and diabetes management with Sanofi.6
Verily is partnered with Gilead on profiling the immune system to clarify the biological mechanisms of autoimmune disease and with Verve Therapeutics on nanoparticle formulations. Verily is also partnered with GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer,7 in the development of bioelectronic medicine.6
With the creation of Galvani Bioelectronics in collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline, Verily now has its own pharmaceutical company that is working to “enable the research, development and commercialization of bioelectronic medicines,” which aim to treat disease using miniaturized implanted devices.8
Another of Verily’s projects is the development of the “sterile insect technique” to manipulate mosquito populations by releasing sterile male mosquitoes that will reduce the populations of insects carrying such diseases as dengue, Zika, chikungunya and yellow fever.9
The company has also entered the clinical study arena, first with its own study called Baseline, which seeks to connect potential study participants with clinical research groups.10
Partnering with Verily initiatives is appealing to pharmaceutical companies, including vaccine manufacturers and developers like Novartis, Sanofi, Otsuka and Pfizer, because of the young biotech company’s focus on modernizing and increasing the efficiency of data collection using tools such as electronic medical study process, as well as getting new drugs and vaccines to market faster. Although the partnered studies are not yet in progress, studies are being explored in cardiovascular disease, oncology, mental health, dermatology and diabetes.
Because anyone can join Baseline and potentially be connected with clinical trials relevant to their own life, keeping patient information private will be a challenge, but the projected market value of the program is expected to reach $69 billion by 2026. 11
As reporter Mark Terry put it for BioSpace, “Perhaps disconcertingly, a company that handles 92.4% of internet searches globally and already has significant amounts of information about your life, now wants to know medical and health information as well.” 12
Alphabet’s Other Medical Venture: Calico Labs
In addition to Verily, Alphabet has another older medical research company called Calico, founded in 2013 and headed by Arthur Levinson, the former CEO of Genentech, another pharmaceutical company that develops vaccines.13
According to Calico’s mission statement, the company wants “to harness advanced technologies to increase our understanding of the biology that controls lifespan” and will “require an unprecedented level of interdisciplinary effort.14
Dr. Aarif Khakoo, Head of Drug Development at Calico (and formerly a Vice President at Amgen, a pharmaceutical company that develops vaccines) said, “With the aging of the world population, there is a pressing need to gain a deeper understanding of the molecular underpinnings of human aging and to translate these insights into new therapies for aging and age-related diseases… I’m looking forward to working with the team and our external collaborators to move the lead therapeutic candidates into clinical studies in the future.”14
It has been obvious for some time now that Google’s algorithms have been adjusted to make it more difficult to find information, including information about vaccines, that doesn’t align with the messages about health and medical care that are approved by government and the pharmaceutical industry. In some cases, no matter how specific a search question is, or how it is worded and re-worded, the search results stubbornly return the same tired but mainstream medical authority-approved results.
Teasing out the infiltration of the pharmaceutical industry into Google, it seems that Alphabet is not just delivering an approved narrative, but Google’s message too.
https://thevaccinereaction.org/2019/08/google-joins-the-pharmaceutical-industry/
https://vaccineimpact.com/2019/google-is-now-a-pharmaceutical-company/