Alphabet's Google Life Sciences joined hands with the American Heart Association (AHA) to design a new $50 million research initiative for finding better heart drugs. Both the groups are hoping that this multidisciplinary approach to research can do a better job in discovering new cardio therapies, which remains a major challenge as biotechs assess the cost of developing new heart remedies
With this new deal, Google Life Sciences group is teaming up with AHA to come up with new tools and resources to address heart disease and this will broaden its med tech cachet. 
Google Life Sciences (GLS) and the AHA will sink $25 million each into the initiative, funneling $50 million over the next 5 years into a research team that will explore the underpinnings of coronary heart disease and potentially lethal effects such as heart failure and sudden cardiac death. A joint leadership group comprised of people from GLS and the AHA will select a leader for the team in early 2016, tasking the person with gathering a group of investigators and spearheading efforts toward "finding new causes and drivers of coronary heart disease," GLS and the AHA said. The leader "may be a cardiologist but could come from any background or area of expertise," they added.
GLS CEO Andy Conrad said that in return, GLS and the AHA will provide the team with support in areas including clinical research, engineering and data analysis and will offer ongoing counsel, oversight and resources through its joint leadership group, creating a "fundamentally different kind of model for funding innovation”.
Conrad further said that the team leader will be able to bring together clinicians, engineers, designers, basic researchers and other experts to think in new ways about the causes of coronary heart disease. He added that they are already imaging the possibilities when a team like that has access to the full resources of both Google Life Sciences and the AHA, and they can't wait to see what they discover.
The partnership comes as GLS forges ahead as a standalone unit under Google's reconceptualized Alphabet company, deepening its med tech footprint through a series of new projects aimed at different diseases. GLS has struck a series of diabetes deals including one with French drugmaker Sanofi to come up with diabetes monitoring solutions, another with Novartis to develop a smart contact lens for diabetes and a partnership with DexCom to create glucose monitoring tools.
The company is also planning to delve into mental health and recruited Dr. Thomas Insel, former head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), to lead the charge. Insel will draw on Alphabet's analytics and data-mining tools to help spur research, with the end goal of improving outcomes for patients and uncovering better treatments for mental illness. If all goes to plan, new technology "could transform this area in the next 5 years," Insel said.
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