Google’s biotech venture hit by ethical concerns over deal with luxury clinic

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Andrew Conrad, who runs Google’s ambitious biotech offshoot, successfully pushed the company to award a research contract to a luxury health clinic he largely owns that has no documented experience with this kind of work, STAT has learned. The arrangement has stirred concern inside Verily Life Sciences — and among corporate governance experts who see it as a conflict of interest.

Verily is also marketing to pharmaceutical companies a wealth of data on volunteers who participate in its major health study, called Baseline. It’s unclear whether Verily has informed volunteers of its plans to profit on their health data; the company declined to provide a copy of the consent agreement for volunteers tested at Conrad’s clinic.

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