It's quite the thing right now in Silicon Valley to invest millions in a coffee shop. Could medical devices be next?
Executives from Apple ($AAPL) met with FDA regulators in December, Bits bloggers Nick Bilton and Brian Chen write in The New York Times. The meeting, noted in the FDA's public calendar, came just a few days before members of an elite Google ($GOOG) R&D team held a tête-à-tête with some of the same regulatory officials.
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| Apple's Michael O'Reilly--Courtesy of UC Irvine |
Apple's meeting was tagged with the subject, "Mobile Medical Applications." Specifically, it related to Apple's efforts to develop a smartwatch, rumored to be called "iWatch," which is expected to include some health monitoring functions, according to Bits. Apple's recent med tech hires include Dr. Michael O'Reilly, former chief medical officer at Masimo. O'Reilly was in the room with regulators Dr. Jeff Shuren and Bakul Patel--two of the same staffers who were present for the Google meeting. Shuren is the director of the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health. Patel, a senior policy adviser, has worked on mobile health apps. More on that here.
In the meeting, O'Reilly was joined by Apple colleagues Jeff Williams, senior VP operations, Bud Tribble, VP software technology, and Cathy Novelli, VP worldwide government affairs.
News of Google's FDA meeting came out about a week before the company announced what it is up to: The company is developing a glucose-monitoring smart contact lens for diabetics, product developers Brian Otis and Babak Parviz wrote in a blog post. As a University of Washington researcher, Otis developed a smart contact lens and tested it in rabbits.
In December, Apple won a patent for putting heart rate monitors into a mobile device like the iPhone. The patent was careful to skirt any mention of a medical application, focusing instead on the potential authentication uses, identifying users by their unique ECG signatures.
- check out the FDA's public calendar
- read the NYT report (sub. req.)