Verily Life Sciences has formed yet another joint venture with a medtech company. This time Verily, once known as Google’s life sciences division, is teaming up with sleep-health specialist ResMed to tackle sleep apnea. The collaboration with ResMed expands the Mountain View, CA-based company’s presence into yet another healthcare segment.

ResMed executives declined to discuss specific details about the joint venture, noting it was still subject to regulatory approvals. However, ResMed CMO Carlos Nunez said the joint venture will operate as a completely separate entity from ResMed and Verily.

Nunez noted ResMed had extensive data on sleep apnea patients and the largest platform of connected medical devices in the home than any other firm, which makes it the perfect partner for Verily Life Sciences.

Under the joint venture, Verily and San Diego, CA-based ResMed will study the health and financial impacts of undiagnosed and untreated sleep apnea and develop software solutions that enable healthcare providers to more efficiently identify, diagnose, treat, and manage individuals with sleep apnea and other breathing related sleep disorders.

“[ResMed] has the expertise, the knowledge, and extensive data sets in sleep apnea; and Verily has the expertise in advanced analytics and a track record for partnering with companies in the medtech space, Nunez, told MD+DI. “We think the joint venture will help us do a more compelling job in understanding what sleep apnea is and how better to engage with patients.”

The companies said that sleep apnea impacts more than 54 million people in the U.S. and is associated with heart, stroke, type 2 diabetes, and other disease conditions.

Despite the condition’s high prevalence and increasing public awareness, past research has shown that about 80% of individuals with obstructive sleep apnea are undiagnosed, untreated and therefore unaware of their own risk and of the benefits that therapy could provide.

“What we don’t understand is why there are nearly a billion people on the earth that have sleep disordered breathing and that 80% of them have no idea … and in many ways are walking time bombs for chronic diseases later in life …,” he said. “We don’t understand why a disease that is so prevalent - that can lead to things that are so devastating – is not more widely known about and screened for.”

Effective JV Player

Verily has a list of collaborations and partnerships with medtech and pharmaceutical companies a mile long.

Through its joint ventures, Verily is tackling surgical robotics, diabetes, the bioelectronics market, and now sleep apnea.

Recently, Verily announced a collaboration with both Sanofi and Sensile to develop an “all-in-one” pre-filled insulin patch pump. An MD+DI special report shows the seven key collaborations that helped the company grab a strong foothold in medtech.