Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp plans the first human tests next year of a "smart" contact lens it is developing with Google Inc designed to help restore the eye's natural autofocus, Reuters reported on Sunday.

"This project is progressing well," Novartis CEO Joe Jimenez told Swiss newspaper Le Temps in an interview.

"I had said it would take about five years to see a product on the market," Jimenez told the paper. "The calendar is on track and we are already developing a technological lens prototype [that] should be tested on humans in 2016."

A Novartis spokesman told Reuters that Jimenez was referring to a smart lens for accommodative vision correction in people with presbyopia, or age-related long sightedness, who can no longer read without glasses.

Under an agreement signed with Google in 2014, Novartis is also developing smart contact lenses to help diabetics track their blood glucose levels.

Jimenez also discussed Novartis' efforts to test a novel pay-for-performance pricing model with some customers for its new heart failure drug Entresto.

Novartis said it was pursuing a system under which customers would get the drug at a discount but then pay Novartis more if it cut the need for costly hospital visits.