SensNews November 2018

Sensor100 November 2018 24 Verily’s Smart Lens Project for Glucose Monitor- ing Put on Hold Verily Life Science, formerly a division of GoogleX, has announced that its develop- ment of a contact lens to monitor glucose in tears for diabetic care has been put on hold. A company statement said “Our clinical work on the glucose-sensing lens demon- strated that there was insufficient consisten- cy in our measurements of the correlation between tear glucose and blood glucose concentrations to support the requirements of a medical device. In part, this was associated with the challenges of obtaining reliable tear glucose readings in the complex on-eye environment. For example, we found that interference from biomolecules in tears resulted in challenges in obtaining accurate glucose readings from the small quantities of glucose in the tear film. In addition, our clinical studies have demonstrated challenges in achieving the steady state conditions necessary for reliable tear glucose readings.” Read more... 16 November Why Noviosense’s In-Eye Glucose Monitor Might Work BetterThan Alphabet’s (Verily) Scientists have tried tracking glucose in sweat, saliva, breath, and urine. They’ve tried to measure it in blood from outside the skin using spec- troscopy.And lately, several groups, including Alphabet, have proposed measuring glucose in tears using smart contact lenses. But so far, no one has succeeded. The quest for a noninvasive, wear- able glucose monitor has mostly left in its wake a trail of dead companies and jaded researchers. Continued...