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Johnson & Johnson CEO to Join Apple's Board
Alex Gorsky
Apple has announced that current Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky will join its board of directors. Alex Gorsky comes to the company as he continues to focus on health.
Apple has announced that current Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky will join its board of directors. Gorsky's move to Apple's leadership team (he will be leaving his position at J&J in January) comes at a time when the company is focusing even more on health and how it can make data more accessible to users and your doctors.
In the press release announcing Gorsky's role at Apple, Tim Cook calls him "a visionary in healthcare" with a "passion for technology." Apple hasn't kept its health ambitions a secret: The Apple Watch is largely viewed as a fitness device, and its users can contribute data to various studies. Recent updates to iOS and watchOS have brought in new health features that make it easy to share medical records with doctors or family members. With Gorsky at the board, Apple could turn to him for new feature ideas (like what new sensors it could add to the Apple Watch) or use his experience to add more integrations with the medical establishment.
Apple and Johnson & Johnson have existing ties: The two companies are working together on the Heartline study, which is designed to see if the Apple Watch can help detect atrial fibrillation before symptoms become obvious or dangerous. However, Apple's health efforts have not been without controversy. Some medical researchers have said that Apple's lack of transparency in its algorithms for measuring things like heart rate makes it difficult to use data from Apple Watches in research. There have also been reports from within Apple that the healthcare division uses potentially misleading data to make product decisions, and employees also raised concerns about Apple's plans for a trial in which it would act as the primary healthcare provider.
It's possible that having someone with experience can help Apple overcome these potential hurdles and make the Apple Watch an even more powerful health tool (although Johnson & Johnson has faced its fair share of controversy since Gorsky became CEO in 2012). It's also possible that it's more of a symbolic move to emphasize Apple's focus on health - we'll only be able to tell by looking at what Apple does with health going forward or if Grosky appears on stage at WWDC to talk about a collaboration amid J&J and Apple.
