Last week NantWorks, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong's growing collection of health startups, acquired wireless health remote monitoring company Boston Life Labs for an undisclosed sum. Boston Life Labs, which will now be called NantCare, joines NantWork's NantHealth division. Boston Life Labs developed a number of devices that aimed to bring connectivity to existing medical devices, similar to Qualcomm's 2net hub.
NantWorks' other acquisitions over the years include Vitality, maker of the medication adherence device GlowCap, as well as iVisit, which has developed the LookTel app for the visually impaired, among others. (The LookTel app officially launched just a few weeks ago.) The company is also working with Toumaz to bring that company's peel-and-stick vital sign monitoring sensors to the US market.
Boston Life Labs offered four key products, HBox, HPad, HPod, and HealthTunes. HBox is a home health hub that connects to up to 12 home health devices at one time via Bluetooth, WiFi, cellular (GPRS), and NFC (near field communications). After "one step pairing" between the devices, the data sent to the hub is then viewable on Boston Life Lab's secure web portal by patients, care givers, or care providers. HPad is a white labeled tablet device that can also receive data from the hub or pull it down from the cloud. The device also includes medication adherence applications, ADL followup, patient education resources and more. HPod is a device that brings Bluetooth connectivity to a wide range of off-the-shelf medical devices, including blood glucose meters and PT INR devices for those on anticoagulants. The HPod plugs into the devices, including some offered by Bayer, Alere, Roche, Abbott, Lifescan and more, and then sends the data via Bluetooth to the HBox. Finally, HealthTunes is BLL's chronic disease management platform available to patients and provider users of its HPad device.
More details on the acquisition in the press release below:
PRESS RELEASE: Phoenix, AZ, March 02, 2012 -- Telehealth Company, renamed NantCare, LLC, to become part of NantHealth’s Integrated Healthcare Information System.
NantWorks, LLC announced that it had acquired Boston Life Labs (BLL), a company specializing in the remote monitoring of patient biometric data. BLL, which has now been renamed NantCare, LLC, provides hardware and software products enabling telemonitoring of patients by means of wireless devices measuring blood pressure, blood sugar, weight, medication management and other key indicators. The center of the company’s operations is in Phoenix, Arizona. It is building a Patient Intelligent Monitoring Center in Phoenix to facilitate improved communication between patient and caregiver, improved medication compliance and control over unnecessary healthcare costs.
Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, founding Chairman and CEO of NantWorks, welcomed NantCare as the latest company to become part of his group’s growing NantHealth division. "Wireless monitoring of patients is absolutely key to the future of healthcare," he said. “Chronic illness has become epidemic, and that is the biggest problem facing our healthcare system, both in terms of health outcomes and costs. NantCare’s technology enables healthcare providers to monitor patients with chronic conditions, in their homes or wherever they may be. Providers can intervene as necessary, before patients become seriously ill. They can keep their patients healthy and greatly reduce the number of hospital admissions.”
Boston Life Labs and now NantCare CEO, Richard Binier, said, “NantWorks is the ideal ecosystem for us. Dr. Soon-Shiong’s vision of a comprehensive digital infrastructure, enabling actionable personalized medicine, covers the whole continuum of healthcare from genomic sequencing and high performance computer analysis all the way to the point of care. We are there at the point of care, with the technology to link the patient and provider in real time to the full power of that infrastructure. That is the shape of 21st century medicine and we are proud to be a part of it.”
Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton also welcomed the news, commenting: "Here in Phoenix we welcome Boston Life Labs, because with its new investment from NantWorks, it will grow here and become a part of Phoenix's renewed economic success and innovation. Most importantly, Boston Life Labs will contribute to our city's growing medical community and to the better care of Phoenix residents."
About NantWorks
NantWorks, LLC is a company founded and led by Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong. Its core mission is to converge a wide range of technologies to transform scientific research and healthcare. It is building an integrated evidence-based, genomically-informed, personalized approach to the delivery of care and the development of next generation diagnostics and therapeutics. For more information, see www.nantworks.com.
