Apple Ramps Up MedTech Expertise Leading To Speculation About Future Plans
By Christine Kern, contributing writer
Experts question what role Apple wants to play in digital health.
Apple has been advertising for new MedTech talent, according to BuzzFeed, leading to wider speculation about the role the company envisions playing in digital health. Since October 2015, Apple has hired at least five new employees with medical research and development experience, which mimics a similar pattern that occurred in 2014 when Apple was developing its first version of the Apple Watch, BuzzFeed reported.
But it remains to be seen whether the latest hiring burst represents work on the Apple Watch 2, rumored to be released late this year, or other health-related goals. Apple CEO Tim Cook insinuated late last year that Apple might be working on a separate health-related project.
Industry watchers suggest the move means Apple is looking to increase its profile in digital health, despite Cook’s earlier insistence that the company was not interested in turning the Apple Watch into a medical monitoring device to the degree it would require FDA approval because that would slow down its innovation process.
In November, Cook told The Telegraph, “We don’t want to put the watch through the Food and Drug Administration process. I wouldn’t mind putting something adjacent to the watch through it, but not the watch, because it would hold us back from innovating too much, the cycles are too long. But you can begin to envision other things that might be adjacent to it — maybe an app, maybe something else.”
Since that interview, Apple has posted at least four job listings in its health technology division, predominately focused on devices that measure physiological signs, and at least five people with medical and development expertise have joined the Apple team since October, BuzzFeed found.
A number of health apps have already been introduced to work with the Apple Watch, including Cerner’s HealtheLife, Sharecare’s AskMD, the athenaText App, HLD, Inc.’s myHDL Physician App, and many others. Apple may be eager to develop apps of its own to capitalize on this success. When it was released, Apple Watch came enabled with HealthKit, including the ability to aggregate health data from various wearable devices.
Apple is not commenting on their plans just yet, so it’s up to industry watchers to wait and see what comes next.