Samsung health platform launched
pharmafile | May 29, 2014 | News story | Medical Communications, Sales and Marketing | Apple, Samsung, heathtech, iwatch, smart band, wearable
Samsung has taken another step towards realising the potential of wearable health tech with the launch of a new ‘smart’ band platform that can measure vital medical signs.
The novel wristband tech was announced at a press event held in San Francisco by Samsung – the world’s biggest handset maker.
Called Simband, the new ‘investigational’ device prototype can be used to measure body temperature, blood oxygen levels, motion and other health metrics on a continuous basis.
Simband also features a shuttle battery which charges when the wearer is inactive, and is equipped with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
This prototype smart band is not going to be sold however, but rather serve as a ‘foundation’ for third-party developers to then build a device that incorporates ‘optical, acoustic and electronic sensors,’ Samsung’s vice president of digital health Ram Fish tells reporters.
“We want to bring in talent from the outside,” explains Young Sohn, president and chief strategy officer for Samsung Electronics’ Device Solutions.
This new platform works in tandem with Samsung Architecture Multimodal Interactions (SAMI), a bank to store sensitive health data on the Galaxy S devices. Samsung says it will not ‘own’ these data, but rather be its ‘custodian’.
SAMI is designed to gather data from various health and fitness applications, and offer insights to consumers. Samsung plans to market SAMI by hosting a developer challenge and setting aside a $50 million fund for early-stage digital health entrepreneurs.
Sohn says the company has already begun investing, recently providing funding to an early-stage entrepreneur building a non-invasive glucose monitoring solution.
This comes as its main rival Apple, based in California, is rumoured to be developing a similar piece of wearable tech in the form of an ‘iWatch’.
Samsung now outsells Apple on the smartphone market and is looking to new areas outside of electronics for future growth.
New markets
And one of these areas is health and wellbeing, which is quickly becoming a core part of the firm. This was evident at the launch of its latest handset the Samsung S5 smartphone that came with the Gear smartwatch range, a device that has personal training functions.
The firm also recently told Bloomberg that it is investing at least $2 billion in biopharmaceuticals, including the growing segment of biosimilars.
Samsung which accrued $327 billion in annual revenue last year aims to become a major force in biotechnology – an industry expected to generate sales of more than $220 billion in five years.
“We are in an infancy still,” Christopher Hansung Ko, chief executive officer at the Samsung Bioepis unit, told Bloomberg in a recent interview. “We are a Samsung company. Our mandate is to become number one in everything we enter into, so our long-term goal is to become a leading pharmaceutical company in the world.”
Ben Adams
Related Content
New Johnson & Johnson study aiming to add stroke detection to Apple Watch
Johnson & Johnson announced that Janssen Pharmaceuticals will work in collaboration with Apple to explore …
How AI is making clinical trials more accurate and affordable
Clinical trials are one of the longest and most expensive steps of bringing a drug …
Top Ten most popular articles on Pharmafile.com this week!
The Samsung scandal played a prominent role in this weeks’ top ten after the South …
