Rather quietly, Patrick Soon-Shiong, MD has been gathering a number of digital or eHealth companies under the NantHealth name. The latest is the recently mentioned [TA 28 Feb] Boston Life Labs, a developer of wireless hubs which connect telehealth devices to the internet and also into a proprietary disease management platform. Now NantCare, it will be moving from Boston to Phoenix, Arizona. NantCare joins earlier acquisitions Vitality (GlowCaps) [TA 3 Feb 11], iVisit, Ziosoft medical imaging (Japan), along with a partnership with the UK’s Toumaz for wearable monitoring sensors. The parent, NantWorks, was set up by Dr. Soon-Shiong as a company converging seeming digital everything–semiconductor, advanced networking, supercomputing and recognition technologies–into healthcare, commerce and entertainment. Right now the acquisitions appear somewhat disjointed (even genomic sequencing gets tossed into the mix), but Ed. Donna bets that it won’t stay this way. NantWorks acquires Boston Life Labs (Mobihealthnews) Release.
The NantWorks companies seem to have a certain amount of crossover. The company’s newly released LookTel Recognizer, an iPhone app which recognizes everyday objects via the iPhone’s camera, has great applicability for older people or the disabled who need vision assistance.