IBM launches new health unit, teams up with Apple, J&J, Medtronic

nternational Business Machines Corp, deepening its partnership with Apple Inc to make use of health information gathered by millions of Apple devices, is creating a unit dedicated to providing data analytics to the healthcare sector.

Its new Watson Health unit plans to aggregate health information from a large number of devices and providers in the cloud and offer insights to health companies such as Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic, which can then integrate results into services they sell to healthcare companies.

IBM said it will create headquarters for the unit in Boston with 2,000 employees, including about 75 medical practitioners. IBM also said it bought two health technology firms, Explorys and Phytel, for an undisclosed amount, to add to its skills in health data analytics.