While Google and Youtube are what everyone knows, Alphabet owns quite a few other companies.
Two of these are all about health, Calico and Verily.
Calico is a R&D biotech company aimed at extending human longevity with founders coming from Genentech. They’re strongly partnered with pharmaceutical company AbbVie.
As Verily’s homepage says, “It all starts with a relentless dedication to better information.”
The question is, is that data going to free us from Big Pharma’s grasp or deepen it? Data can obviously be manipulated to achieve certain aims. Verily’s collaborators include GlaxoSmithKline, Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, Sanofi, as well as many others. So what direction do you think this personalized medicine of the future is going in?
Vaccitech received funding from GV, Alphabet’s venture capital company. This is one of 87 life sciences companies that GV currently lists in its portfolio!
I would not call Google or Alphabet a pharmaceutical company. But they are significantly invested into the biomedical space in a wide variety of ways, especially as relates to data. Without a doubt, there are conflicts of interests regarding pharmaceuticals and vaccines.
