Vodafone, one of the world’s biggest telecommunications providers, is to launch a healthcare unit in a bid to capture a slice of the growing mobile healthcare market.

The move mirrors that of the company's arch rival, Orange, which launched Orange Healthcare in November 2007. More recently, Orange struck a deal with global cardiovascular diseases treatment group Sorin, to work on cardiac patients implanted with cardiac rhythm management devices and who require remote monitoring at home (www.clinica.co.uk, May 19 2009).

Diane Sullivan, scientific advisor at Vodafone, told Clinica at the inaugural Mobile Healthcare Summit 2009 on Tuesday (December 1) that while Vodafone has had a healthcare R&D department for some time, it has now established this as an official division within the group called the Healthcare Business Unit.

Dr Sullivan, a biochemist by training, is in charge of spearheading the pilot projects and testing proofs-of-concept for end user-driven applications in mobile healthcare.

At the summit, organised by Informa Telecoms & Media, Vodafone CEO Vittorio Colao told journalists that the new business unit will work with pharmaceutical companies and government organisations to focus on healthcare products.

Set up a month ago, the unit is expected to start operations at the beginning of 2010.

As of September 2009, Vodafone Group had 323 million customers, excluding paging customers, across the globe. Its “mHealth Alliance” programme, a corporate social responsibility initiative, is a cross-sector collaboration with Rockefeller and United Nations Foundations to facilitate global innovation in the field of mobile healthcare.