Google spinoff Verily is building a 'tech-enabled' rehab center in Ohio to treat opioid addiction

• Google's life sciences spinoff Verily will start to take on the opioid crisis.
• Beginning this spring, Verily will be partnering with health networks in Dayton, Ohio to create a data-driven rehab facility for those experiencing opioid addiction.
• The non-profit initiative will be called OneFifteen and will be headquartered in Montgomery County, Ohio - a region Verily described as "ground zero" for the opioid epidemic.
• "We are focused on making health information useful so people can live healthier lives and in the face of one of the greatest public health crises the US has seen, we feel compelled to act," the company said.

Google's life sciences spinoff Verily wants to take on the opioid crisis.

On Wednesday, the company announced in a blog post it would be partnering with two health networks in Dayton, Ohio to create a data-driven rehab facility for those experiencing opioid addiction.

The company said that in assessing the opioid crisis, a common issue it found was an information gap for patients, communities, and lawmakers. Verily thinks it can provide the technology needed to solve that data problem, and hopefully "advance the understanding of how to treat and promote sustained recovery for those experiencing addiction."

The life science arm of Google-parent Alphabet - which has its hands in many health-related projects from diabetes care to creating utensils for those with movement disorders - said the opioid problem in the US was too big to ignore.

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"We are focused on making health information useful so people can live healthier lives," the company said in its blog post announcing the project. "And in the face of one of the greatest public health crises the US has seen, we feel compelled to act."

The initiative will be called OneFifteen and will be headquartered in Montgomery County, Ohio - a region Verily described as "ground zero" for the opioid epidemic.

Verily has partnered with Kettering Health Network and Premier Health to create OneFifteen, which will be a not-for-profit endeavor. It has also joined forces with Alexandria Real Estate Equities to help design and develop the campus, which will have both outpatient and inpatient services.

"We are working to develop a tech-enabled campus conducive to promoting recovery and addressing the holistic needs of each individual treated," Verily said.

According to a CNBC report, OneFifteen plans to start seeing patients in Spring of 2019, and the full campus is set to be completed by 2020.

A Verily spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

In January, Verily raised a $1 billion in a mega-funding round which its CEO Andrew Conrad said at the time would, "increase flexibility and optionality as we expand on our core strategic focus areas." Last week, reports surfaced that the company was interested in embedding sensors into sneakers to monitor a person's health and is hoping to attract a shoe industry partner to bring the concept to life.

In its earnings call with investors on Monday, Alphabet CFO Ruth Porat said that its "Other Bets" revenues - which includes subsidiaries like Fiber and Verily - were $595 million in 2018, up 25% from the previous year. The operating loss for all the "Other Bets," however, increased from $2.7 billion in 2017 to $3.4 billion in 2018.