Google Rebrands Life Sciences as Verily

Google's life sciences division names itself VERILY in a move that marks it as an independent company under Alphabet.

After releasing a new patent and stepping up their game as an independent organization trying to make a change, Google has given a name to their life sciences division. The division, now an independent Alphabet company, will be known as ‘Verily’. Verily strives to use technology to solve problems related to health, and prevent, detect and manage disease.

“Verily, I swear” – Shakespeare, Henry VII. Dating back to the 13th century, the word is a popularly used in the King James Bible. According to a dictionary, it means “in truth; really; indeed”.

"Only through the truth are we going to defeat Mother Nature," said Andy Conrad, CEO, Verily, “Verily’s focus is a shift from conventional medical technologies, from reactive to proactive, from intervention to prevention.”

Verily, a part of Alphabet Inc., houses a staff of around 300 employees in Mountain View and at an office in Cambridge. Alphabet is a part of the restructuring done by Google to separate its R&D and consumer-focused initiatives. Previously, the life sciences division was part of the company’s Google X R&D unit. The homepage, verily.com, is now live for anyone to visit.

 “There's no user manual for the human being. How can we use technology to create a true picture of human health?...When Google[x] embarked on a project in 2012 to put computing inside a contact lens — an immensely challenging technical problem with an important application to health — we could not have imagined where it would lead us. As a life sciences team within Google X, we were able to combine the best of our technology heritage with expertise from across many fields. Now, as an independent company, Verily is focused on using technology to better understand health, as well as prevent, detect, and manage disease,” says Verily.

Verily works on projects like the bandage glucose monitor, researching a baseline for the perfect human health, a nanoparticle-based diagnostic tool to detect cancer at early stages and a contact lens to monitor glucose levels using tears in a partnership with Swiss drugmaker Novartis. It tackles problems related to health issues like cancer, mental health and cardiovascular disease.

“Verily is a new company that is focused on bringing together technology, science and medicine in the places where we think we can have the biggest impact on the detection, management, and prevention of disease. It was formerly known as the life sciences team at Google and is part of Alphabet,” said Verily.

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