Verily and Its Approach to Digital Biomarkers

Digital Biomarkers: This is Ray Dorsey, the editor of Digital Biomarkers. Today, I’m very pleased to be joined by Dr. William Marks, who is the Head of Clinical Neurology for Verily. Bill, thanks very much for joining us. William Marks: You’re welcome. Digital Biomarkers: Bill, I was hoping you could first tell us who or what is Verily? William Marks: Verily is a translational life sciences company, living at the intersection of technology, data science, and healthcare. Formerly called Google Life Sciences, we’re now an independent company that’s part of the Alphabet organization. Our mission is to make the world’s health data useful so that people enjoy healthier lives. We strive to collect and integrate a broad spectrum of existing and new types of data around health and disease to reveal informative and actionable insights. We think a lot about health and disease, and the transition between the two. Our ultimate goal is to enable earlier and more precise diagnoses, monitoring of progressive diseases with better sensitivity, and – ultimately – care delivery in a more efficient, effective, and proactive manner. Verily has brought together basic scientists, software engineers, hardware engineers, clinicians, clinical researchers, and those from many other disciplines – all under one roof, working on tackling some of the toughest issues in healthcare. We feel that it’s only through this cross-disciplinary approach that we’ll be able to obtain important answers to very challenging questions. Some organizations focus mostly on software analytics, others on sensors and other hardware, or still others on molecular assays; we at Verily are bringing all of these capabilities together, and more. Published online: July 14, 2017