Smart Phone?? It’s Time for Smart Lens.

Smart phones are a thing of past! The pace of technological advancement is so overwhelming that each new day, new inventions knock the door. A significant invention in field of nanotechnology is undoubtedly, THE SMART LENS. It is a project initiated by Google and pharmaceutical giant Novartis has agreed a deal with Google to develop its “smart” contact lens to help diabetics monitor their glucose levels.

This achievement is being considered a great milestone in the field of bio-engineering. Google’s prototype lens was first revealed in January. It is designed to measure the level of glucose in the wearer’s tears and communicate the information to a mobile phone or computer. The latest strategy adopted by these market targeting companies is manipulating the stream of healthcare appliances. The boom is endless with the growth of unhealthy adoption of lifestyle. Wearable technology is seen as a key growth sector.

Novartis announced that its eye care division Alcon has entered into an agreement with a division of Google Inc. to in-license its “smart lens” technology for all ocular medical uses. The agreement with Google[x], a team within Google that is devoted to finding new solutions to big global problems, provides Alcon with the opportunity to develop and commercialize Google’s “smart lens” technology with the potential to transform eye care and further enhance Alcon’s pipeline and global leadership in contact lenses and intraocular lenses.

The core of this device is a minute chip developed using the implementation of nanotechnology. It is a wireless chip and has miniaturized glucose sensors embedded between two layers of soft contact lens material. Google states that the chips and sensors are so small they look like bits of glitter, and an antenna thinner than a human hair. It said the prototype could generate a reading once per second. That has definitely a great potential to revolutionize eye care as we know today. The device promising such wonders is going to take some time before flooding the market but the dream is not far away. People suffering from diabetes need to monitor their glucose levels regularly as sudden spikes or drops are dangerous.

At present, the majority of them do so by testing drops of blood. Consumer demand for innovative ways of doing this is likely to grow as the incidence of diabetes continues to increase. Mr. Jimenez, Novartis Chief Executive, said the smart lenses may also be used can also correct vision in a manner similar to the lenses on auto focus cameras. This will also help cure a lot of eye related diseases. For people living with presbyopia who can no longer read without glasses, the “smart lens” has the potential to provide accommodative vision correction to help restore the eye’s natural auto focus on near objects in the form of an accommodative contact lens or intraocular lens as part of the refractive cataract treatment.

While some are calculating it as technology disrupting the pharmaceutics, but such advancement have always been disregarded in the beginning. New technology has never been accepted immediately and history bears witness to that.

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