At Informa’s second Mobile Healthcare Industry Summit, held in London in September, telecoms.com sat down for half an hour with Thierry Zylberberg, executive vice president of the Health Line of Business at Orange and Michael Reilly, director of Orange Healthcare UK, to discuss the recent flurry of activity in the mobile health sector.

In February of this year Keith Nurcombe took the helm of Telefónica UK’s first foray into the field of medicine as head of O2 Health. He joined the telecoms industry after 18 years in the health sector, saying that he was attracted to the role by the idea of helping a mobile brand move into the health market and make health services a key operator offering.

US chip giant Intel said Tuesday it has entered into an agreement with General Electric to form a 50/50 joint venture healthcare company focused on electronic health and independent living. The new company will absorb GE Healthcare’s Home Health division and Intel’s Digital Health Group, and will be owned equally by GE and Intel. It is expected to become operational by the end of the year.

Demonstrating the growing importance of the healthcare sector in the operator community, Spain-based Telefónica on Tuesday launched a global e-health unit tasked with the decentralisation of clinical processes and ubiquitous and remote access to these services.

Opportunities in the global mobile healthcare market are estimated to be worth between $50bn and $60bn in 2010, prompting operators to step up their initiatives in this emerging sector.

M-health is set to take a considerable slice of the US medical device and pharma markets. Europe is eyeing the market, too. But to determine the adaptability of the concept in local context, Africa could well provide a good example.