GlaxoSmithKline and Google will develop bioelectronic medicines

British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline is teaming up with Google's parent company Alphabet to create a new company to develop bioelectronic medicines that can "harness electrical signals in the body to treat chronic disease."The joint venture will be named Galvani Bioelectronics, headquartered in the UK, with 55 percent of equity interest owned by GSK and 45 percent owned by Alphabet's Verily Life Sciences division.

Under the agreement, both companies will invest up to £540 million ($715 million) in Galvani and they have plans to have treatments ready for regulatory approval by 2023.Galvani Bioelectronics is named after Luigi Galvani, an 18th-century scientist who is best known for his work on bioelectricity and his experiments animating severed frogs' legs using jolts of electricity.

Bioelectronics is a relatively new branch of health care, which as the name suggests, focuses on bringing together electronics and biological research. The term can cover a number of different therapies, but GSK plans to concentrate on creating electrical implants that can be used to treat diseases.

GSK believes that biomedicines can treat conditions like arthritis and asthma, but one of Galvani Bioelectronics' first projects will focus on the development of "miniaturized precision devices" that can help remedy "inflammatory, metabolic and endocrine disorders" including type 2 diabetes. GSK will fuse its drug discovery and development prowess with Verily's expertise in developing tiny low power electronics.

Initially, Galvani will employ 30 scientists, engineers, and clinicians, who will utilize treatments developed by both parent companies, academic institutions and other R&D companies. They'll have to wait until the deal is approved by competition regulators before they do, but both parties expect that to happen before the end of the year.