Director of Apple’s health tech division to found a new start-up called Ciitizen

Former Gliimpse founder Anil Sethi is leaving Apple’s health tech division to found a new start-up called Ciitizen. He was named director of the team in 2016.

According to CNBC, he had taken some months off to help his sister Tania fight cancer, and promised her before she died on Sept. 11 that he would do something to help very sick patients. (He and his sister are shown together in the accompanying photo). Ciitizen will help patients get and share information like genomic information, labs, ethical wills or advanced directives.

Apple acquired Gliimpse last year. The company provides “Gliimpses” of your health data. The company helps users collect their medical data from web portals, then help organize it into a shared and understood health story. 

Sethi had been on leave from Apple for several months to care full-time for his sister. One of Sethi’s goals with Gliimpse was to help her aggregate her medical information, including labs and charts, according to CNBC. 

He’s now decided not to rejoin the Apple health team and instead is starting a new company, dubbed Ciitizen, which is focused on making it easier for people like Tania to get their information — whether it’s about genomes, labs, ethical wills or advanced directives — and share it with researchers on request.