Qualcomm, Unable to Raise Capital, May Be Terminating LifeComm

Struggles to find third-party financial support has prompted San Diego’s Qualcomm (NASDAQ: [[ticker:QCOM]]) to stop supporting LifeComm, its startup healthcare mobile network, according to a report by Mobihealthnews, a Boston website covering the wireless health industry.

Attributing the information to an anonymous source, Mobihealthnews reported yesterday that Qualcomm is pulling the plug on LifeComm. In response to a query from Xconomy, Qualcomm declined to discuss the matter beyond a statement that is less absolute: “Qualcomm is reviewing its options with LifeComm in light of current capital market conditions that have prevented LifeComm from raising the third-party capital necessary to fully develop its initial launch product.”

In its statement, the wireless giant goes on to say that it remains committed to supporting its partners in the wireless healthcare market, and will continue to work with its partners and industry organizations in advancing wireless healthcare technology. In 2007, Qualcomm began publicizing its plans to launch LifeComm as a virtual mobile network that would enable people to use specialized cell phones that would help them monitor their diabetes and other health concerns.

The company said it was working with undisclosed medical device companies to design phones that would not only provide the functions of a regular cell phone but which also could monitor health or medical conditions. Don Jones, Qualcomm’s vice president of health and life business development, told the San Diego Union-Tribune that Qualcomm and its undisclosed partners would become a mobile virtual network operator.

Qualcomm initially said the new service would be launched during the second half of 2007, but the debut never arrived. Mobihealthnews says LifeComm’s ownership structure posed a problem from the beginning, and Qualcomm delayed the launch because it did not want to be the main investor in a company that offered wireless services that might encroach on its customers’ turf.

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.