Toshiba opens health care tech center in Japan

Toshiba is next in a line of large tech companies (Salesforce, Microsoft) to increase its emphasis on health care.

The Tokyo-based company announced a new research and development facility in Kawasaka City, Japan that will develop health care products.

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“The center is established for the purpose of expanding the health care business under the medium-term management plan, and will serve as a base for the development of next-generation products as well as research and development of differentiating technologies on mid- and long-term basis,” Toshiba says in a statement.

Toshiba says it will spend about $427 million (50 billion yen) on research and development in the health care business in fiscal year 2016 — a 30 percent increase from last year.

The company also says it will put 20 percent more people into the research and development of health-related products inside Japan and elsewhere. The headcount in its health divisions will increase by between 3,000 and 3,800 people, Toshiba says.

Toshiba says it wants to use the new facility to develop new genomic analysis services, along with new big data approaches to synthesize the data. It says it’ll also develop new products that use biological sensors.