Thomas R. Insel, who has been the director of National Institute of Mental Health for past 13 years, will be joining the Google Life Science group. The announcement was made this morning by Insel itself.

The company said, "Tom is coming on board to explore how the life-sciences team at Google could have an impact on the huge challenges related to understanding, diagnosing, and treating mental illness".

Insel wrote a blog post in late August detailing his visits to Silicon Valley tech giants and startups that are working on health ventures. Technology is not the answer to all problems, but it can help those with mental illness even more than those with other chronic, serious medical conditions, he said.

Insel said he will step down in November and join Google Inc's life sciences division. He said he would be working on the internet search giant's projects to explore mental illnesses.

Google has been increasing its presence in the healthcare industry, signing deals with drug-makers, including Novartis AG and Sanofi SA.

It has been said Google's Life Sciences division is collaborating with Novartis to develop contact lenses to help diabetics track blood glucose levels.

This news has made it even clearer that Alphabet may be re-thinking earlier statements about the difficulty of the health care business. Joseph Jimenez, chief executive of Google partner Novartis, recently said the company's glucose-monitoring contact lens for diabetics could move into clinical trials next year, earlier than expected.

The company's biotech arm, Calico, which is focused on an anti-aging research, signed a deal with AbbVie, the drug giant, where they would share the development costs of some products.