Telecomm giant Qualcomm Technologies Inc. is no stranger to the world of connected health, but its interest in healthcare actually reaches much further than that.
Today, Qualcomm CTO Matt Grob was a panelist on the first in a series of science and tech-focused Google+ Hangouts organized by the Obama administration called “We the Geeks.” He shared why the company is taking part in the $100 million BRAIN Initiative unveiled by the White House in April.
Hailed as the country’s next Grand Challenge, similar to the Human Genome Project, the initiative will link and fund public and private projects to deepen researchers’ understanding of how the brain works.
Behavioral Health, Interoperability and eConsent: Meeting the Demands of CMS Final Rule Compliance
In a webinar on April 16 at 1pm ET, Aneesh Chopra will moderate a discussion with executives from DocuSign, Velatura, and behavioral health providers on eConsent, health information exchange and compliance with the CMS Final Rule on interoperability.
“It turns out, a number of the fundamentals of communication theory and information theory that we are familiar with at Qualcomm intersect with certain branches of neuroscience, and it’s actually a quite good match,” Grob said.
In fact, Qualcomm has quietly been working in neuroscience for at least a few years through one of its portfolio companies, Brain Corp. The company is creating what Grob called “neuromorphic hardware,” or processors designed with inspiration from the biology of the brain. Ultimately, it wants to create smart consumer products powered by these “artificial nervous systems.”
“While we do that […] we create a set of tools and simulation capabilities and authoring tools that we think will be useful to (those in) the community that are participating in BRAIN initiative,” Grob added.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
Of course, this isn’t the only Grand Challenge that Qualcomm is getting in on. It’s also paired up with the X Prize Foundation to host the $10 million Tricorder XPRIZE.
Meanwhile, it’s also continuing a push into connected health with its acquisition of HealthyCircles earlier this month, to boost its cloud-based data hub for remote monitoring devices called 2net. “There’s a lot of very innovative startups out there and small companies that are producing medical sensors of all kinds, and it’s always a challenge for them to then connect their device wirelessly,” Grob said. “We’re trying to make that a lot easier for them.”
[Photo from FreeDigitalPhotos user samuiblue]
