Google’s Verily to offer GLP-1 drugs through Lightpath, its retooled chronic care app

By Brittany Trang June 11, 2024

Reprints

Google's Verily is pivoting, again. Its chronic disease management app Onduo will transition to a new, “evolved” offering called Lightpath. Courtesy Verily

For the second time in as many years, Google’s health tech spinout Verily is pivoting. The company announced Tuesday that it will phase out its chronic disease management app Onduo over the next year and a half as it transitions to a new, “evolved” product called Lightpath.

Lightpath Metabolic, expected to be available in 2026, will not only include programs for people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes and hypertension — as the current iteration of Onduo does — but will also offer GLP-1 drug prescriptions. It will also use artificial intelligence and data from devices such as continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) devices to personalize the care, said Myoung Cha, Verily’s chief product officer.

But becoming just one of many apps that uses AI assistants or offers GLP-1 telehealth prescriptions is a surprisingly unoriginal choice for a venture that began its life with a goal to “defeat Mother Nature.” Verily started with “moonshot” ideas like wristbands that would detect cancer and abandoned projects like a contact-lens continuous glucose monitor while searching for a direction over the last nine years amid turnover among employees and executives.

STAT+ Exclusive Story