Alphabet's life sciences firm Verily may use its its giant patient registry to help sign people up to test coronavirus treatments

Carlos Osorio/AP

Healthcare workers test a person at a COVID-19 drive-thru testing site.

• Verily, the life-sciences arm of Google's parent company Alphabet, could soon connect patients to clinical trials for coronavirus treatments.
• Verily has a massive collection of patient data called Project Baseline that already helps drugmakers run studies by connecting them to participants.
• With so many drugs on the way that could help treat the virus, widespread participation in trials could be an important project for Verily, according to Vivian Lee, president of health platforms.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

Verily, the health wing of Google parent company Alphabet, could soon connect patients to clinical trials for coronavirus treatments.

Through its massive patient registry, Project Baseline, Verily helps drugmakers run studies by connecting them to participants. It's currently enrolling people in research on topics including depression, heart disease, and sleep.

With many drugs on the way that could help treat the coronavirus, ensuring widespread participation in trials could be an essential function of the Baseline technology, according to Dr. Vivian Lee, president of health platforms at Verily.

"Right now, of course, we're faced with inadequate testing and the desire to understand who's going to get infected and what's going to happen next to our communities," Lee said in an interview with Business Insider.

"But we hope very soon we're going to have access to potential therapeutics for clinical trials," she said.

In a statement to Business Insider, a spokesperson for Verily confirmed that the company may get involved in trials for coronavirus therapeutics in the future, but said the company is not announcing such an effort at this time. Currently, the Project Baseline website has a section that directs some people in California to testing sites for the coronavirus.

Lee joined Verily in 2018 after running the University of Utah Health system as CEO. She recently wrote a book, "The Long Fix," which details the complicated web of the US healthcare system and offers ways to improve it.

Read more: Verily just presented for the first time at JPMorgan's big health conference. Here's how the CEO of Alphabet's life sciences firm laid out the unusual business to top investors.

Verily, led by CEO Andy Conrad, is a sister firm to Google in Alphabet's portfolio. It has its hands in projects spanning robotics to blood-sugar-tracking devices to work on addiction treatment. All in, Verily has raised $1.8 billion in outside investments to support its work.

Verily can help find patients for clinical trials

There's no proven medication that can cure patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. But some promising treatments have already made it to clinical trials and could generate results as soon as the next few weeks.

Gilead Sciences, AbbVie, Roche, Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, and Sanofi all have potential treatments in trials, and other studies have reported success treating sick patients with blood plasma from people who recovered from the virus, according to reporting by Business Insider's Andrew Dunn.

Worldwide, hundreds of studies are underway, according to the US National Institutes of Health.

"There's going to be a number of different drugs that are going to come into testing. And having registries like this is absolutely vital," Lee said. "You want to be able to identify patients who are eligible for these trials, and you also want to be sure that people who can participate in these trials can represent the wide demographics in this country."

Verily is already doing similar work for various pharmaceutical companies in trials outside of coronavirus, according to Lee. About a year ago, the company announced partnerships with major drugmakers Novartis, Otsuka, Pfizer and Sanofi to develop clinical programs with the Baseline platform.

"But I think it's also really important that we have this capability now going forward as we look at COVID therapeutics," Lee said. "So that's one area that we've focused a lot on."

Verily is working on other projects to help fight the coronavirus

Verily is helping hospitals, health departments, and state officials set up lab testing in California, but the company is rolling out more projects to help hospitals outside the state.

After fielding concerns from providers struggling to keep up with the influx of calls from people with coronavirus symptoms, for instance, Verily developed a tool for health systems to triage patients online, according to Lee. They'll release the widget soon, free to providers during the pandemic

Last week, Google released location tracking data that showed new movement trends in light of social distancing. It also donated $800 million to support businesses, government, and healthcare organizations in the fight against the pandemic and announced an effort to expand ventilator production.

But the company came under scrutiny last month when President Donald Trump said it was building a nationwide coronavirus-testing website before it was ready. At the time, Verily made an announcement that testing projects were still in development and would start off in the Bay Area.

Senators have also voiced privacy concerns, asking Verily why it requires Google sign-ins for its screening service and how it safeguards user data.

Featured Health Articles:
- Telehealth Industry Explained
- Value-Based Care Explained
- Senior Care & Assisted Living Market
- Smart Medical Devices & Wearable Tech
- AI in Healthcare
- Remote Patient Monitoring Explained- AI in Medical Diagnosis Systems

NOW WATCH: Pathologists debunk 13 coronavirus myths