Comments on: Qualcomm pulls the plug on LifeComm

By: Qualcomm adds $6M to Lifecomm venture | mobihealthnews

Qualcomm adds $6M to Lifecomm venture | mobihealthnews — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:40:40 +0000

[...] broke the story that Qualcomm’s original plans for Lifecomm had been shuttered in July of last [...]

By: Qualcomm’s Lifecomm: Reborn as mobile PERS service | mobihealthnews

Qualcomm’s Lifecomm: Reborn as mobile PERS service | mobihealthnews — Thu, 13 May 2010 08:11:39 +0000

[...] Response Service (PERS) focused on seniors and their caregivers in the United States in 2011. MobiHealthNews broke the story that Qualcomm’s plans for Lifecomm had been shuttered in July of last year. The announcement today that Hughes Telematics and the American Medical Alert [...]

By: Don Jones, VP LifeScience, Qualcomm « 3G Doctor Blog

Don Jones, VP LifeScience, Qualcomm « 3G Doctor Blog — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 13:07:43 +0000

[...] at Qualcomm not only because of his experience with the attempt to launch LifeComm – a $100 Million Healthcare MVNO that was way ahead of its time – as a spin out from Qualcomm (the wireless powerhouse that enables over 700 million 3G [...]

By: Qualcomm CEO confirms LifeComm shutting down | mobihealthnews

Qualcomm CEO confirms LifeComm shutting down | mobihealthnews — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 14:46:50 +0000

[...] that the company’s healthcare focused MVNO LifeComm had become irrelevant. Mobihealthnews broke the news that LifeComm was shutting down two weeks [...]

By: Adieu, LifeCOMM | e-CareManagement

Adieu, LifeCOMM | e-CareManagement — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:56:59 +0000

[...] Qualcomm pulls the plug on LifeComm mobihealthnews; July 15, 2009 [...]

By: Malcolm Burwell

Malcolm Burwell — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:59:38 +0000

So… the silver lining here is that an MVNO is dead, and long live the MNOs. Qualcomm is still right with it’s sequential strategy: harvest money from mobile multi-media today, next harvest mobile payment/finance, then (eventually) harvest mobile health. The wireless carriers (”MNOs”) are on this path already (see Vodafone’s MPESA financial service and the Oyster-card London Underground roll-out). They are begining to explore health also… without the need for a Lifecomm MVNO overlay (see Vodafone’s recent “acquisition” of t-plus Medical… lots more happening behind the confidentiality veil also). In tough times, when Qualcomm must control costs, cutting from its long-term strategy (mobile health; hence Lifecomm) is sensible. A lost momentum-causer for us in connected-health, though. Kevin’s right: mobile health will force itself onwards via smaller, self-contained enterprises that can weather the time needed for clinical trial work to demonstrate RoIs. Cardionet is a shining example there.

By: Kevin McMahon

Kevin McMahon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:32:27 +0000

David – you miss my point or I wasn’t clear enough in my previous comment. We were looking forward to evaluating and potentially incorporating the Lifecomm devices into our ADMS and offering them as a device option in our payer focused health management programs. However, If a company like Diabetech is already well positioned then why is it so hard for a company like Qualcomm? … and why do I get the feeling that everyone else is lost on how to go from new device concepts to field trials of their new devices then to commercialization? From our perspective we already have 100% of the technology required to deliver the envisioned Lifecomm offering with significantly less overhead (translates to lower cost of entry for innovators) so there is no loss at the platform level other than the marketing dollars and visibility that a name like Qualcomm has to offer.

Even if an innovator wins the bplan competition, how does that address or accelerate adoption by the payer landscape? And until you answer that question, VC money will be primarily interested in accumulating IP from today’s innovators and aggregating their IP portfolios for a business launch some day in the future when payers are willing to pay. Taking expensive money to build a device is easy. Getting paid for it is something else entirely and I don’t see how the loss of Lifecomm’s promised entry affects this fundamental business objective.

By: David Doherty

David Doherty — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:35:07 +0000

Hi Kevin, a little surprised you couldn’t see the benefits of a big player developing next generation devices for experienced professionals (like your good self!) to build a service layer on top of.

Anyway, one good thing that might come of QC’s withdrawal from LifeComm could be the influence that it has on the Qualcomm Venture QPrize Business Plan Competition. I hope they’ll look more favorably on startup mHealth companies now that they’re not concerned about competitive issues.

QPrize is an initiative to identify and strengthen novel business ideas while in the concept stage. Additional details on candidate eligibility and submission guidelines are available at http://www.qprize2009.com and http://www.qualcomm.com/ventures

NOTE: the 31st of July is the deadline for submitting completed business plans!

Good luck!

By: Kevin McMahon

Kevin McMahon — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 02:49:25 +0000

Diabetech’s wireless health platform is still available… since 2002… and since 2007 on GSM/GPRS… bring it on. Lifecomm is not the missing piece. What’s been missing is randomized controlled clinical trial data showing efficacy based on devices that patients like to use. Now that we have that, we are being kept quite busy by several health plans. Unfortunately for Lifecomm, that lifecycle of generating the trial data takes a good 3 to 4 years from start to finish and the timing appears to have been off for them. Full speed ahead.

By: Vince Kuraitis

Vince Kuraitis — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 14:06:06 +0000

This is a significant and unfortunate development. The growth of the entire mobile ecosystem of application vendors is inhibited by the need for one or more common platforms on which to build and develop their apps.