IBM Watson Health Hires Former Philips CEO, Adds Partners
By Jof Enriquez,
Follow me on Twitter @jofenriq
IBM Watson Health recently fleshed out its plans to disrupt healthcare by announcing new leadership, hospital partnerships, and cloud-based services based on the Watson analytics platform.
Deborah DiSanzo, who served as CEO of Philips Healthcare for two years until 2014, is now IBM Watson Health's GM, according to Business Insider. She will lead a team of 2,000 employees, including 700 at the business unit's new headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
The location for IBM Watson Health's headquarters is not surprising, TechCrunch reports, as the Boston area "has a strong life sciences focus along with world-class hospitals and colleges (including MIT and Harvard).
"I'm thrilled to join IBM and serve as general manager of IBM Watson Health," DiSanzo said in a statement. "IBM Watson Health has been on fast growth trajectory and has a strong foundation that well positions us to continue to seize opportunities across the continuum of life sciences and healthcare. I'm ready to scale IBM Watson Health to the next level and bring the benefits of the IBM Watson Health Cloud to organizations worldwide."
Since its launch in April, IBM Watson Health has forged agreements with companies such as Medtronic, Johnson & Johnson, and Apple to analyze fragmented health data from devices and apps using Watson's vaunted computing prowess. IBM has also strengthened the Watson platform's imaging analytics by acquiring Merge Healthcare for $1 billion.
Also, Forbes notes IBM's long history in the health sector, specifically its existing partnerships with established medical institutions, such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering, MD Anderson, and Emory University.
Now, IBM has announced the expansion of this growing network of partnerships in the healthcare industry to leverage Watson's capabilities to glean insights from the massive amount of health data from patients.
Per an IBM press release, Watson Health's new partners include:
Boston Children's Hospital (BCH), which, as Watson Health's "foundational pediatrics partner" will enhance BCH's OPENPediatrics initiative to bring medical knowledge to caregivers, and to leverage Watson Genomic Analytics to discover treatments for rare pediatric diseases.
Columbia University Medical Center, which will use Watson to help oncologists translate DNA insights into personalized treatment options for cancer patients. IBM says Columbia is the 16th cancer center to use Watson Genomic Analytics to bring precision medicine to patients worldwide.
ICON plc, which is the first global clinical research organization (CRO) to use Watson for clinical trial matching by automating the identification of patients who meet criteria, and analyzing trial protocols using data stored in the Watson Health Cloud.
Sage Bionetwork, whose Open Biomedical Research Platform will leverage the Watson Health cloud to aggregate, store, curate, and analyze data collected via apps using Apple's ResearchKit in the areas of breast cancer and Parkinson's disease research, and for other areas of biomedical research in the future.
Teva Pharmaceuticals, which will introduce its first e-health solution for chronic disease management in 2016 using Watson Health Cloud as its platform.
"Watson Health is driving a new era of technology-driven health, enabling entrepreneurs and industry leaders to address diverse needs, spanning the earliest stages of research all the way through to clinical care and population health through to consumer wellness," said Mike Rhodin, Senior VP, IBM Watson Group, in the release. "The variety of new partners and use cases underscores the flexibility and scalability of the IBM Watson Health Cloud to help leaders rapidly advance the state of the art in health and wellness. Further, IBM Watson Health is building for scale, with partners, offerings and now a worldwide headquarters designed to help global organizations meet the world's pressing health needs."
In the press release, IBM also unveiled two additions to its solutions portfolio:
IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Sciences Compliance, a solution for biomedical companies to fast-track the deployment of a GxP compliant infrastructure and applications, while complying with stringent requirements for hosting, accessing, and sharing regulated data.
IBM Watson Care Manager, a population health solution that integrates capabilities from Watson Health and Apple's HealthKit and ResearchKit platform to make it easy for researchers to conduct studies using Apple devices.