Apple has purchased a startup that was focused on finding a solution for asthma-monitoring in children, CNBC reported Friday.
CNBC cited a source as familiar with Apple’s deal to acquire the startup Tueo Health. Prior to the reported acquisition, Tueo was focused on creating an app that used data from sensors to provide parents with detailed information about the sleep habits of their children with asthma in order to better identify when there might be a problem.
“We use commercially available sensors to monitor asthmatic children while they sleep. Our technology leverages the data from these sensors to create a personalized baseline for each child,” Teuo co-founder and CEO Bronwyn Harris said of the system. “Alerts are automatically sent to parents when there are deviations from their child’s baseline. These alerts are interactive and informative—we provide contextual information and just-in-time education and support to help them better manage their child’s asthma.”
While the product was created with children in mind, Harris said the system would eventually expand for use by adults as well. According to Harris, applications for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were also planned, as it’s “another condition that doesn’t have a good measure of control.”
Spokespeople for neither Tueo nor Apple immediately returned requests for comment about the report. However, as CNBC noted, both Harris and Tueo’s COO Anura Patil list Apple as their employer since 2018 on LinkedIn.
While the deal between Apple and Tueo may have been finalized sometime in 2018, news of the acquisition arrives just a week before Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company is expected to unveil updates to its Health app, including a menstrual cycle tracker and a function for tracking your hearing health.
Speaking at the TIME 100 Summit last month, Apple CEO Tim Cook said that the company was “working on a bunch more things” related to health monitoring, adding that he thinks “there will be a day that we will look back and say Apple’s greatest contribution to mankind has been in healthcare.”