It looks like Google is bent on conquering health care. The multi-million-dollar tech company behind one of the biggest search engines and Android has just purchased a biotechnology company that created a spoon that cancels up to 70% of Parkinson's disease tremors.
Google bought Lift Labs, the company behind Liftware, a special type of spoon that is connected to an attachment. This attachment has a very thin battery that doesn't need recharging for several days. It also has built-in sensors that can detect tremors and stabilize handling.
According to Anupam Pathak, CEO of Lift Labs, the product was designed based on the feedback provided by one of the patients in a support group. Although he's proud of the positive impact his invention is giving to patients, he's also aware that many cannot afford it. Without the attachment, which costs almost $20, the spoon is priced at $295.
In order to allow patients who cannot afford the technology, his team started a campaign in Indiegogo, charging a small amount for shipping. It received strong backing, and the company shipped over 100 of these devices. Lift Labs hopes that being with Google will make their product more commercially affordable.
Meanwhile, Google, who also helped finance an anti-aging facility in the Bay Area through Calico, hopes that with the acquisition, they can develop more technologies and ways to make essential tremor, in particular, and Parkinson's disease in general more manageable.
Pathak and some members of his company are expected to start working in Google's headquarters in Mountain View. They will also be part of the rapidly growing Life Sciences division, which is also said to be developing contact lenses that can keep track of blood sugar levels among diabetes sufferers. Some reports also mentioned Google is working on a project called Basline that aims to determine the accurate profile of a healthy person.
In the United States, more than 55,000 people are diagnosed with Parkinson's disease yearly, and medications can be as high as $2,500 annually. One of the most common signs of the neurodegenerative disease is essential tremor, which affects 10 million sufferers.