Pharmaceuticals have entered the digital age, and they aren’t looking back.
制药公司已迈入数字化时代，他们正勇往直前。
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，正与搜索巨头谷歌（Google）的研究团队合作，准备推出智能隐形眼镜技术。
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，以及不远的将来能读取血糖水平的隐形眼镜——对糖尿病患者来说这是真正的革命性产品，他们现在要么只能扎手指取血样，要么只能佩戴皮下监测设备。
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）正与谷歌创新团队携手，准备将智能隐形眼镜推向市场。日前，《财富》（Fortune）杂志专访了爱尔康全球总裁杰夫o乔治，讲述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，乔治升任爱尔康总裁，在他的协助下，两个半月前公司与谷歌X实验室达成合作。目前爱尔康公司正在筹划如何借助这一微型技术改善普通人的健康水平。（试想，再也不用戴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）就与对方开始会谈，此后不久谷歌便宣布他们正在开发可以测量血糖水平的智能隐形眼镜。在我加盟之前，公司就向他们展示了爱尔康的设备，谷歌对我们所拥有的能力深表叹服。
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日上任以来，我在爱尔康的主要任务之一就是努力营造并激发公司的创新文化。我们全力寻找各种最佳创意，无论它们是来自公司内部还是外部。爱尔康长期以来所做的大量创新使我们从一家1984年销售额仅为3.5亿美元的公司成长为去年销售额高达105亿美元的公司。而与此同时，我要确保始终让员工接受来自行业外的各种启发。
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.
我发现，科技与医疗保健正日益融合，而（谷歌公司）打造创新原型产品的速度也真让我惊叹不已，这正是能与我的团队产生强烈共鸣的东西。与顶尖科技公司合作，让我们用全新的眼光看待医疗设备业，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兴奋？
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。现在全球有近20亿人因老花眼而阅读困难，无论是iPad还是纸质书都是如此，他们非常希望能自由阅读，摆脱老花镜。这正是让我们兴奋的地方。
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，它们与进入眼睛的光量及视线的上下移动相互作用，根据眼睑开合的角度控制进光量。随后传感器可以将信号无线传输给内嵌于两层隐形眼镜之间的液晶。然后这些液晶会自动调节以供远眺或近看。我们对这种技术非常非常感兴趣。
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.
我们希望，作为全球白内障和屈光手术外科设备的领导者，最终将能够把这一技术用于人工晶体，这对我们来说是桩大生意。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，这一技术有望获得长足发展？
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.
确实如此。我们为所有的视觉应用申请了智能隐形眼镜的独家专利。目前我们正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，这些技术还有望用于其他眼科疾病。
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术中眼压，而这是由前列腺素这类治疗青光眼的药物来控制的。在其专利到期前，适利达（一种前列腺素药名）是辉瑞公司（Pfizer）一款价值高达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，这一技术还会在哪些领域深刻改变医疗保健业？
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.
我认为，这一合作关系从眼部开始至关重要，因为眼睛确实是人体整体健康状况的窗口。不过，除了眼科，诺华在众多临床治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，或者说癌症治疗，今后这一领域可能也会有其他机会。在心力衰竭领域也会有各种机会。我们已获得了一条极佳渠道有望治疗患有慢性心力衰竭的病人，还具备了开拓目前就医需求强烈的领域的多种条件。
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整合起来的最大挑战是什么？
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.
要知道，从技术挑战这一角度看，事情并不容易。我们刚才谈到了嵌入传感器、微型无线芯片和微芯片。而如何才能确保在血糖监测智能隐形眼镜上使葡萄糖和血糖之间具有相关性呢，还有其他需要在临床上加以验证的很多东西。
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，我认为既有谷歌擅长解决的技术难题，也有诺华和爱尔康擅长应对的临床难题。
Do you see more partnerships like this happening in the future between technology and pharmaceutical companies?
你认为科技公司和制药公司今后会开展更多此类合作吗？
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.
我确实发现科技和医疗保健业有日益融合的趋势。而我认为，科技公司不仅要找到新的增长点，也需要找到能真正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，这种合作有望帮助全世界成千上万的患者。对诺华和爱尔康来说，这种合作确实充满了使命感，我尽管不想为谷歌代言，但我想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）很清楚，他们在某些方面天生就能力极强，富有竞争优势，但如果能找到合适的合作伙伴，建立一种共生关系，他们就能发展得更好。他们采用了竞争择优的选拔流程，利用一系列关键选择标准，最终发现谷歌和诺华是一对完美拍档。
How do you see the intersection of tech and pharma transforming the healthcare industry in the future?
你认为科技和制药业的这种密切融合今后会如何深刻改变医疗保健行业？
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.
实际上，很多一流医疗保健企业都拥有大量专有技术。如果您和诺华生物医药研究所（Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research）所长马克o费希曼聊聊就会发现，目前流行的大数据和数据革命对诺华的大量研究来说已经起到了举足轻重的作用。
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驾驭大数据。其二就是，无论是在癌症治疗还是其他疾病治疗领域，他们能利用大数据做什么，以及大数据如何才能有助于实现个性化治疗。
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好地控制自己的健康状况。过去人们必须去医生那儿做大量检查，而今天这些检查都可以远程无线进行。
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，今后会有更多医疗设备企业和制药企业深入挖掘大数据，因为这能让他们从病人的视角获得更深入的认识，开发出更好的药物。