MASSDEVICE ON CALL — The market is awash with rumors that technology titan Apple Inc. (NSDQ:AAPL) is building mobile medical devices for future generations of its iPhones and the long rumored iWatch, with latest reports suggesting that the company may have nabbed a former employee of patient monitoring systems maker Masimo (NSDQ:MASI).
O’Reilly was chief medical officer at Masimo from 2008 until just last year, and he still serves on the board of Masimo’s Foundation for Ethics, Innovation & Competition in Healthcare, according to the group’s website.
MobiHealthNews cited an anonymous tipster who told the news source that O’Reilly had joined Apple. His LinkedIn profile notes that his employment with Masimo ended in July 2013, but doesn’t mention any new positions with Apple. O’Reilly hasn’t confirmed the rumors and Masimo has declined to comment on them, but speculations have been rampant amid increased interest in Apple’s potential efforts to build wearable monitoring technology.
Apple has yet to say if or when it will release a so-called "iWatch" or what, exactly, such a device would be capable of, but last month speculation hinged on reports that Apple had nabbed medical sensor experts Nancy Dougherty, formerly involved with transdermal drug delivery devices and wearable vital signs monitoring, and Ravi Narasimhan, who also worked with personal vital sign monitoring.
These latest hires aren’t Apple’s 1st to fit with growing speculation that the company’s building a sensor-laden iWatch. The tech titan last year hired high-level members of C8 MediSensors and Senseonics.
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