Google's health startup Calico announced Wednesday that it is working with biotechnology drugmaker AbbVie to create treatments for diseases related to aging.
Both companies are each providing $250 million in funding to create a new research center in San Francisco, according to The Verge. A group of researchers from Calico will use the facility to create new drugs, while AbbVie will conduct clinical trials and handle marketing for the drugs.
"Our relationship with AbbVie is a pivotal event for Calico, whose permission is to develop life-enhancing therapies for people with age-related diseases," said Arthur Levinson, CEO and founder of Calico. "It will greatly accelerate our efforts to understand the science of aging, advance our clinical work, and help bring important therapies to patients everywhere."
Google and AbbVie can spend an additional $1 billion on the project, and they will split all expenses and profits made from the effort, San Jose Mercury News reported.
Calico was introduced last year as a separate business aimed at making medical achievements that would help people live longer. The company is currently studying the aging process of the human body and developing technology to use for curing cancer.
AbbVie was founded in North Chicago, Illinois as a spin-off of Abbott Laboratories, San Jose Mercury News reported. The pharmaceutical company is currently developing drugs that it plans to use for fighting illnesses, such as Parkinson's disease and Crohn's disease.
Google hasn't revealed a lot of details on how its Calico project will be able to "cure death," according to The Verge.
"One of the things I thought was amazing is that if you solve cancer, you'd add about three years to people's average life expectancy," said Larry Page, CEO of Google. "We think of solving cancer as this huge thing that'll totally change the world. But when you really take a step back and look at it, yeah, there are many, many tragic cases of cancer, and it's very, very sad, but in the aggregate, it's not as big an advance as you might think."
