Dive Brief:
- Google continues to grow its stake in the digital health space with the purchase of Seattle startup Senosis Health, GeekWire reported, citing sources familiar with the deal.
- Senosis makes products for monitoring hemoglobin counts, lung function, newborn jaundice and osteoporosis.
- Four of the company’s apps — SpiroSmart, SpiroCall, HemaApp and OsteoApp — were under Food and Drug Administration review earlier this year, according to the news outlet.
Dive Insight:
The purchase of Senosis expands Google’s digital health portfolio and adds to speculation about whether Google parent Alphabet has plans to fully enter the healthcare space. In April, CNBC reported that the tech giant was scouting around for computational biologists, robotics experts and academic researchers, and noted that three of its’ “Other Bets” targeted healthcare.
About that time, Verily, Alphabet’s life sciences arm, let on that it was looking for 10,000 volunteers to help build a comprehensive biometrics database. The Project Baseline study will amass clinical, molecular, imaging, self-reported, behavioral, environmental, sensor and other health-related information using Verily’s encrypted Study Watch and its Baseline mobile app.
Last fall, GV, formerly Google Ventures, helped lead a $32 million funding round for Aspire Health, a Nashville-based palliative care provider co-founded by former U.S. Senate majority leader Bill Frist.
Google also is partnering with the UK’s National Health System, via its DeepMind artificial intelligence company, to study whether machine learning technology can be used to analyze eye scans. The hope is to detect and treat age-related macular degeneration before it causes blindness.
With the Senosis deal, Google again shows a commitment to tackling age-related diseases like osteoporosis, as well as other acute and chronic health conditions.