Apple is said to have acquired health data startup Gliimpse, Inc., according to a report published Monday.

Fast Company claims that the acquisition occurred earlier this year but was never publicly announced, although as is standard for an Apple acquisition, the tech giant issued its standard statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans,” confirming that the deal did actually take place.

Founded in 2013 by former Apple engineer Anil Sethi, Gliimpse ran with what they claim is a simple idea, that “everyone should be able to manage their health records, and share them securely with those they trust.”

The company remained in relative stealth prior to its acquisition, but described itself as “healthcare’s platform for patient data” in that, by unlocking patient data silos they were able to aggregate fragmented data into patient-owned, longitudinal health profiles.

“As a consumer of healthcare, I leave behind a bread-crumb-trail of medical info wherever I’ve been seen,” Sethi explains on his LinkedIn page. “But, I’m unable to easily access or share my own data. Obamacare is one of several forcing functions federally mandating physicians and hospitals give us our data: meds, labs, allergies … you get the idea. However, there’s no single Electronic Health Record that all physicians use, sigh. Worse, there isn’t even a common file format across a 1000+ systems.”

Expansion

The acquisition expands Apple’s commitment to health-based solutions that started with its launch of HealthKit in 2014, a partnership with IBM to provide data to the Watson Health Cloud, and products including ResearchKit and CareKit.

It’s not entirely clear how Gliimpse will add to Apple’s health lineup given that on paper, it appears to duplicate many of the functions that the company’s existing products already provide. Notably, Gliimpse was intended for patients with diseases like cancer and diabetes, making it a more targeted, niche product.

Prior to acquisition, Gliimpse is known to have raised $1 million in a seed round, but it’s unknown if it raised further rounds in its four years operating as an independent company.

photo credit: Medical Research 2 via photopin (license)