Verily is Alphabet’s life-sciences company associated with the glucose-sensing smart contact lens project.
The organization began as Google X’s life-sciences team and became an independent Alphabet subsidiary called Verily Life Sciences in 2015. Its work has focused on combining biology, medicine, data analysis, and technology to study and manage health conditions.
In 2014, Google announced a prototype contact lens project intended to measure glucose levels in tears for people with diabetes. The lens attracted attention because it proposed a wearable approach to monitoring blood sugar without a conventional finger-prick test. The project was later discontinued after testing showed that tear glucose did not correlate reliably enough with blood glucose for the intended use.
Verily is often confused with Calico, another Alphabet company focused on aging and longevity research. Verily’s portfolio has included clinical research, health data, and medical devices, while the smart contact lens was one early project rather than the company’s entire mission.