French drugmaker Sanofi and Google owner Alphabet’s life sciences firm Verily are to invest about $500 million in a diabetes joint venture combining devices with services.
The JV, called Onduo, will initially focus on the type 2 diabetes community, specifically on developing solutions that could help people make better decisions about their day-to-day health, ranging from improved medication management to improved habits and goals.
Nearly 400 million people worldwide have diabetes, with the type 2 version accounting for more than 90 percent of cases.
Without proper treatment or lifestyle changes, those numbers are expected to grow substantially in the coming years.
The Sanofi deal comes after British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline and U.S.-based Verily – formerly Google Life Sciences – created a new company focused on fighting diseases by targeting electrical signals in the body, jump-starting a novel field of medicine called bioelectronics.