Live from the mHealth Summit Washington DC: Chipmaker Qualcomm has made two moves in the mobile health market by forming a wholly owned subsidiary called Qualcomm Life and setting up a US$100 million investment fund. Qualcomm Life’s first products are the 2net Platform and Hub which will connect wireless medical devices so that biometric data can be easily accessible by the device users, their healthcare providers and physicians.  Qualcomm says 40 companies in the US including health device vendors and service providers are either integrating with the 2net platform, or considering it. The plan is to launch the service in Europe in 2012.

“Our services, including integration on the 2net Platform, remove the burden for medical device manufacturers of a large technical development effort, providing integration with mobile carriers and solving the operational complexities of supporting wireless medical device data in the field,” says Rick Valencia (pictured), vice president and general manager of Qualcomm Life. Patient data is obtained by Qualcomm at several points including the 2Net hub, a patient’s mobile phone, other celluar-enabled devices such as a home monitoring unit or APIs that connect to the customer service platform.  The product is compliant with HIPAA security requirements and other healthcare regulation. A second aspect of the new product is that as more companies sign up to the product then the value increases of the aggregated data gathered from the participants. Qualcomm Life takes over the business formerly known as Qualcomm Wireless Health.

The new US$100 million Qualcomm Life Fund is designed to accelerate the adoption of wireless health services and technology (including the 2net platform). The fund’s investments will likely be in biosensors or devices for vertical applications like chronic disease care, medication compliance and general fitness; integrated system providers that provide remote monitoring; software health IT applications; and health-related informatics/analytics. Qualcomm currently invests in five healthcare firms: Sotera Wireless, Telcare, AliveCor, Cambridge Temperature Concepts and WorkSmart Labs.