Google, Google, Google….looking for the fountain of youth

September 20, 2013

Google announced earlier this week that that it’s a major investor in a venture that would work on combating aging and disease. But Google declined to provide any more details on how the venture would operate or what it would do. Google is not the first technology company to make the leap into healthcare. The search for the fountain of youth — and health — has long been a great obsession in Silicon Valley.

The project is being led by biotech pioneer Arthur Levinson, chairman of the boards of Apple Inc. and Genentech Inc. Levinson, the former chief executive of Genentech and a Google board member, was named the CEO and founding investor of the California Life Co., or Calico. He will report to Larry Page, Google’s chief executive and a major supporter of Calico.

Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger said previous efforts to mine vast amounts of data “has yet yielded huge payoffs in healthcare.” But Google may have the clout to speed medical breakthroughs and push change in an American healthcare system deeply resistant to it, she added.