Google offshoot Verily Life Sciences and partner Alcon, a division of Novartis, have run into delays developing an autofocus contact lens project for clinical testing, Reuters reported Friday. That lens will not be tested on people this year as previously hoped.
It’s also unclear when, if ever, human testing might start for a glucose-sensing contact lens meant to relieve diabetics of the need for needle sticks to test their blood sugar. This lens inspired Google cofounder Sergey Brin to form the ambitious Verily, which, like Google, is a subsidiary of Alphabet.
A STAT investigation earlier this year found that the lens was regarded by many researchers — and even experts inside Verily — as technically infeasible because tears are not a reliable fluid for measuring blood sugar.
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