Pharmaceuticals have entered the digital age, and they aren’t looking back.制药公司已踏入数字化时代，他们于是以勇往直前。Novartis said Tuesday it is teaming up with Google[x] GOOG -1.53% , the search company’s research arm, to launch smart lens technology.上周二，诺华公司（Novartis）称之为，于是以与搜寻巨头谷歌（Google）的研究团队合作，打算发售智能隐形眼镜技术。The move is only the start of a healthcare revolution. There’s Google glasses in operating rooms, a prescription-only smart phone app and, in the not-so-far future, contact lenses that can read blood-sugar levels — a revolution for diabetics, who today must either prick their own fingers or wear a subcutaneous monitoring device.这只是一场医疗革命的开端。还有手术室专用的谷歌眼镜，处方级智能手机应用于，以及不远处的将来能加载血糖水平的隐形眼镜——对糖尿病患者来说这是确实的革命性产品，他们现在要么不能恰手指所取血样，要么不能配戴皮下监测设备。

Fortune talked with Jeff George, the global head of Alcon — the Novartis subsidiary that is working hand-in-hand with Google innovators to bring smart lenses to market — about the intersection of healthcare and technology, and what could lie ahead for the pharmaceutical industry.作为诺华的分公司，眼科公司爱尔康（Alcon）于是以与谷歌创意团队联手，打算将智能隐形眼镜推向市场。日前，《财富》（Fortune）杂志采访了爱尔康全球总裁杰夫o乔治，描写医药行业与科技的交融，以及制药业的前景。George came on board to lead the contact-maker on May 1, and already in his two and a half months on the job he’s helped to land the Google[x] partnership and is planning out how Alcon can leverage this miniature technology to transform everyday health. (Think: no more reading glasses!)今年5月1日，乔治调任爱尔康总裁，在他的帮助下，两个半月前公司与谷歌X实验室达成协议合作。目前爱尔康公司正在筹划如何利用这一微型技术提高普通人的身体健康水平。

（比如说，很久不必戴着老花镜了是什么情景！）How did the partnership between Google[x] and Alcon come about?《财富》：谷歌X实验室与爱尔康公司是如何达成协议合作的？Joe [Jimenez, Novartis CEO] had had conversations back at the beginning of the year just prior to Google announcing that they were moving forward with their gluco-sensing smart lens, and we had an opportunity prior to my joining to show them our facilities. They were pretty impressed with the capabilities that we had.杰夫o乔治：今年年初，乔（即诺华公司首席执行官吉梅内斯）就与对方开始会晤，此后旋即谷歌之后宣告他们正在研发可以测量血糖水平的智能隐形眼镜。在我加盟之前，公司就向他们展出了爱尔康的设备，谷歌对我们所享有的能力深表赞叹。

One of the things I’m trying to do at Alcon just having taken over May 1 is really stimulate and galvanize the culture of innovation. We’re really looking for the best ideas whether they are internal or external. There’s been a tremendous amount of innovation in Alcon that’s enabled us to grow from a $350 million company in 1984 to $10.5 billion last year. And at the same time I wanted to make sure we’re exposing our people to inspiration outside of our industry.自5月1日离任以来，我在爱尔康的主要任务之一就是希望营造并唤起公司的创意文化。我们全力找寻各种最佳创新，无论它们是来自公司内部还是外部。爱尔康长期以来所做到的大量创意使我们从一家1984年销售额仅有为3.5亿美元的公司茁壮为去年销售额高达105亿美元的公司。而与此同时，我要保证一直让员工拒绝接受来自行业外的各种灵感。

I see an increasing convergence between technology and healthcare and the speed at which [Google] is prototyping products really blew me away, so this is something that really resonated with my team. It’s not a traditional way of looking at healthcare, even within medical devices, to really partner with a top technology company.我找到，科技与医疗保健于是以日益融合，而（谷歌公司）打造出创意原型产品的速度也真为让我惊叹不已，这正是能与我的团队产生反感回响的东西。与顶尖科技公司合作，让我们用全新的眼光看来医疗设备业，甚至整个医疗保健业。What aspect of the “smart lens” technology excites you most?“智能隐形眼镜”技术的哪方面最让你激动？Presbyopia. You have close to 2 billion people who have difficulty reading, whether it’s an iPad or a book, and really want freedom from readers and from eyeglasses. That’s really something that’s exciting for us.矫正老花眼。

现在全球有将近20亿人因老花眼而读者艰难，无论是iPad还是纸质书都是如此，他们十分期望能权利读者，挣脱老花镜。这正是让我们激动的地方。Effectively the way the technology works is that you have photo diodes which are sensors that are embedded into the contact lens that interact with the amount of light that is coming into the eye and interact with your down-gaze or your up-gaze, which controls how much light is coming in based on where your eyelid is. The sensor technology is able then to wirelessly send a signal to a liquid crystal, which is embedded between two layers of a contact lens. Then that liquid crystal would adjust for either looking out in distance or looking in near field. That technology is something that’s really really quite interesting to us.这一技术的原理是，在隐形眼镜上植入作为传感器的光敏二极管，它们与转入眼睛的光量及视线的上下移动相互作用，根据眼睑开闭的角度掌控入光量。随后传感器可以将信号无线传输给嵌入于两层隐形眼镜之间的液晶。

然后这些液晶不会自动调节以供眺望或将近看。我们对这种技术十分十分感兴趣。Our hope is that as the leaders in surgical equipment and devices for cataracts and refractive surgery globally, we could ultimately develop this also for intra-ocular lenses, which is a big business for us. Our cataract business is over $3 billion in size.我们期望，作为全球白内障和屈光手术外科设备的领导者，最后将需要把这一技术用作人工晶体，这对我们来说是桩大做生意。

目前我们的白内障业务规模是30多亿美元。So, the potential for this could go much further?这么说来，这一技术未来将会取得长足发展？It does. We licensed the smart lens technology on an exclusive basis for all ocular uses. We’re very focused on bringing to market the gluco-sensing smart lens for diabetics and auto-focus technology for presbyopics–like my parents and in a few years myself. But at the same time, there are other ocular indications.显然如此。我们为所有的视觉应用于申请人了智能隐形眼镜的独家专利。目前我们于是以致力于将糖尿病患者所需的可监测血糖的智能隐形眼镜和老花眼人群——比如我父母和几年后的我本人——所需的可自动调焦技术推向市场。

不过与此同时，这些技术还有望用作其他眼科疾病。There’s about 60 million people around the world who have glaucoma, and this sensing smart-lens technology could continuously monitor intra-operative eye pressure, which is what is controlled by medicines that treat glaucoma like prostaglandins. Before its patent expired, Xalatan [a prostaglandin] was a product worth a couple of billon dollars to Pfizer.目前全世界青光眼患者高达6000万人，这种感应式智能隐形眼镜技术可以持续监测法术中眼压，而这是由前列腺素这类化疗青光眼的药物来掌控的。

在其专利届满前，适利约（一种前列腺素药名）是辉瑞公司（Pfizer）一款价值低约数十亿美元的拳头产品。Are there other areas where you could see this technology transforming healthcare?在你看来，这一技术还不会在哪些领域深刻印象转变医疗保健业？I think it’s important that the partnership is starting with the eye, which is really the natural window into the body’s overall health. But, moving beyond the eye, Novartis is clearly a leader globally in a number of therapeutic areas.我指出，这一合作关系从眼部开始至关重要，因为眼睛显然是人体整体健康状况的窗口。不过，除了眼科，诺华在众多临床化疗领域都是全球领导者。

One of those that we’re a leader in is oncology, or the treatment for cancer, and there could be other opportunities in the future in that space. There could be other opportunities in heart failure. We’ve got a pretty incredible pipeline that’s looking to address people with chronic heart failure and a number of conditions right now where there’s a pretty high medical need.其中之一就是肿瘤学，或者说癌症化疗，今后这一领域有可能也不会有其他机会。在心力衰竭领域也不会有各种机会。

我们已取得了一条极好渠道未来将会化疗患上慢性心力衰竭的病人，还不具备了拓展目前就诊市场需求反感的领域的多种条件。What will be the biggest challenge incorporating the technology into Alcon’s own product development?将这一技术与爱尔康自己的产品开发统合一起的仅次于挑战是什么？From the technical challenge perspective, you know, this isn’t easy. You’re talking about layering in sensors and miniature wireless chips and microchips. Then, how do you ensure on the gluco-sensing smart lens that there’s a correlation between the sugar glucose and the blood glucose, plus a number of other things that we need to prove clinically.要告诉，从技术挑战这一看作，事情并不更容易。

我们刚才谈及了映射传感器、微型无线芯片和微芯片。而如何才能保证在血糖监测智能隐形眼镜上使葡萄糖和血糖之间具备相关性呢，还有其他必须在临床上加以检验的很多东西。So, I think there are both technical challenges, which is really where Google excels, and there’s also clinical challenges, which is really where Novartis and Alcon excel.所以，我指出既有谷歌擅长于解决问题的技术难题，也有诺华和爱尔康擅长于应付的临床难题。Do you see more partnerships like this happening in the future between technology and pharmaceutical companies?你指出科技公司和制药公司今后不会积极开展更加多此类合作吗？I do see an increasing convergence in technology and healthcare, and I think technology companies are looking for new sources of growth but also new ways in which they can really impact the world.我显然找到科技和医疗保健业有日益融合的趋势。

而我指出，科技公司不仅要寻找新的增长点，也必须寻找能确实影响世界的全新方式。As Sergey [Brin] said in his quote yesterday, this has the potential to help millions of people around the world. There’s a real mission component to this for us on the Novartis and the Alcon side, and I think that’s true for Google as well, though I wouldn’t want to speak for them.正如谢尔盖o布林昨天所说，这种合作未来将会协助全世界成千上万的患者。

对诺华和爱尔康来说，这种合作显然充满著了使命感，我尽管想为谷歌代言，但我想要对他们来说事实也是如此。[Google] recognizes that they are the natural owners for certain capabilities and certain competencies, but really it’s going to be best for them to partner and to find a symbiotic relationship that they can develop. There was a very competitive process that they ran. They had a number of key selection criteria, and ultimately the match ended up being right between Google and Novartis.（谷歌）很确切，他们在某些方面天生就能力极强，富裕竞争优势，但如果能寻找适合的合作伙伴，创建一种共生关系，他们就能发展得更佳。他们使用了竞争筛选的甄选流程，利用一系列关键自由选择标准，最后找到谷歌和诺华是一对极致搭档。

How do you see the intersection of tech and pharma transforming the healthcare industry in the future?你指出科技和制药业的这种紧密融合今后不会如何深刻印象转变医疗保健行业？Frankly, in many top healthcare companies there’s a huge technological component. If you talk to Mark Fishman, who is the president of our Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, big data and the data revolution that’s happening are instrumental to a lot of our research activities within Novartis.实质上，很多一流医疗保健企业都享有大量专有技术。如果您和诺华生物医药研究所（Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research）所长马克o费希曼聊聊就不会找到，目前风行的大数据和数据革命对诺华的大量研究来说早已起着了举足轻重的起到。

One of the elements is how people are able to leverage and harness big data. A second element is what they can do with it then and how that enables personalization in medicine, whether it be in oncology or in other indications.这其中的要点之一就是人们如何才能充分利用并匹敌大数据。其二就是，无论是在癌症化疗还是其他疾病化疗领域，他们能利用大数据做到什么，以及大数据如何才能有助构建个性化化疗。There’s also this consumer piece of it, which is enabling consumers to take more control of their own healthcare. In the past you used to have to go to a doctor to do a lot of the testing that today can be done wirelessly and remotely.这其中还有消费者的因素，即大数据能让消费者更佳地掌控自己的健康状况。

过去人们必需去医生那儿做到大量检查，而今天这些检查都可以远程无线展开。I think we’ll see more medical device companies and pharma companies that are interested in moving into the data realm because it gives them greater insight from a patient perspective into developing better medicines.我想要，今后不会有更加多医疗设备企业和制药企业了解挖出大数据，因为这能让他们从病人的视角取得更加了解的了解，研发出有更佳的药物。

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