The Google company Veriliy Life Sciences is teaming up with pharmaceutical firm GlaxoSmithKline to develop implants that will fix problems in our organs using electricity.
To do this, the firms are setting up a new company in the UK, called Galvani Bioelectronics, which will receive up to £540 million over the next seven years.
The idea behind bioelectronic implants is to modify nerve signals in ways that will fix or counteract problems in the body – a bit like heart pacemakers and defibrillator implants already do. The plan is to develop tiny implants that can connect to the nerves linked to specific organs, and for these implants to be powered wirelessly and operate automatically.