Apple Watch Blood Glucose Team Gains New Lead

Apple has done some internal shuffling and appointed Tim Millet, vice president of platform architecture, to lead the team that is working on blood glucose monitoring functionality for the Apple Watch.

According to Bloomberg, Millet is now in charge of the Exploratory Design Group or XDG that has been developing noninvasive blood glucose testing for years. The team was previously led by longtime Apple employee Bill Athas, but he unexpectedly died in late 2022.

Millet has been at Apple for almost 20 years, and he reports to Apple chip chief Johny Srouji. Bloomberg says that Millet has played a key role in the transition to Apple silicon, leading several teams that work on the processors.

Apple's work on blood glucose monitoring is being overseen by the semiconductor team rather than a health team because it requires advanced sensors and chips. Apple is exploring a noninvasive monitoring technique that involves shooting a laser underneath the skin to determine the concentration of glucose in the blood.

Noninvasive blood glucose monitoring would allow diabetics to test their blood glucose levels without needing to prick the skin, plus it would likely be able to detect pre-diabetes and other blood glucose issues.

Earlier this year, Apple reached a milestone "proof-of-concept" stage with hardware that is about the size of an iPhone, but Apple needs to condense the components into a size that can fit into an Apple Watch.

A blood glucose monitoring function for the Apple Watch remains several years away.