Samsung announces $50M digital health fund, wearable technology plans

Laura Pedulli | | Health Exec | Precision Medicine

The Silicon-Valley-based division of Samsung unveiled plans for an open platform for developers, medical professionals and hardware makers to advance digital health, reported CNBC.

The company announced open software and hardware efforts as well as a $50 million fund designed to help startups looking to work together on Samsung’s Digital Health Initiative.

It also revealed the reference design for a wearable that could track heart and respiratory rates, blood pressure and other data.

Samsung’s Simband is designed so companies can add in their own sensors, algorithms and innovations in other areas. The sensors involved include the usual ones, but also some innovative ones, such as light and acoustic sensors to measure other things going on inside the body. In addition, Samsung is working on a cloud-based, open source software platform to bring together fragmented data from a variety of sources for more useful analysis, according to CNBC.

More details on Samsung’s digital health plans are outlined here.

 

Laura Pedulli

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