The healthcare industry, a regulated sector, is regarded as an industry entangled with various stakeholders. While the highest attention is given to direct new drugs and digital therapeutics (DTx) at the forefront, what is most important is the establishment of digital infrastructure to support them. No matter how advanced the technology is, if the infrastructure actually used still relies on pen and paper, the utility of the technology inevitably diminishes.
On the 15th, in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Kakao Ventures held a 'Brown Bag Meeting' event introducing companies attempting to integrate digital technology to improve medical field infrastructure among their invested 'family companies.' Kim Chi-won, Managing Director of Kakao Ventures, who led the meeting, emphasized, "The core of healthcare platforms is interconnectivity," adding, "It is also possible to connect business models through the most important doctor-patient interaction." He stressed, "Our family companies focus more on developing infrastructure rather than directly targeting patients," and "They are companies attempting digital transformation in preclinical and clinical infrastructure, as well as electronic medical records (EMR)," he emphasized.
In fact, Actnova, JNP Medi, and SenacleSoft, which presented at the event, all highlighted that their solutions reduce steps or procedures through digital means, thereby saving time and costs.
At the 'Brown Bag Meeting' event hosted by Kakao Ventures held on the 15th in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Kim Dae-geon, CEO of Actnova, is giving a presentation. [Photo by Lee Chun-hee]
The first presenter, Actnova, is a startup developing a nonclinical trial animal model behavior monitoring solution using artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. In existing nonclinical animal experiments, especially for neurological and psychiatric disorders, researchers had to visually observe and evaluate symptoms over long periods. Naturally, this required significant time and cost investment, and quantification was difficult, leading to low reliability.
Kim Dae-geon, CEO of Actnova, explained that to overcome this, "We developed technology that automates the entire process with AI." He described the solution as one where AI deep learning automatically counts specific behaviors of rats for evaluation, rather than relying on humans. Kim said, "We can save 75% of nonclinical labor costs annually," adding, "Our primary goal is to enter the global market and achieve annual sales of 2 billion KRW."
On the 15th, Lee Jae-hyun, Director of JNP Medi, is giving a presentation at Kakao Ventures' 'Brown Bag Meeting' event held in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. [Photo by Lee Chun-hee]
The second presenting company was JNP Medi, which is developing a decentralized clinical trial (DCT) solution, a recent hot topic in the industry. Lee Jae-hyun, Director of JNP Medi, stated, "70% of global new drug research and development (R&D) investment costs are spent on clinical trials," and "We are seeking answers to overcome the traditional clinical trial methodologies that require improvement."
JNP Medi’s solution is a digital-based clinical operation and data management system called 'Maven Clinical Cloud.' Centered on 'Maven CDMS' for clinical trial data collection and management, it integrates various digital solutions such as digitizing clinical documents previously handwritten (Maven Docs), adverse reaction monitoring, and regulatory report submission (Maven Safety).
However, full-scale DCT is still difficult to implement domestically due to regulatory issues. Only in relation to COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutic development is DCT application allowed exceptionally for the entire process, including participant recruitment, consent, and pre-, mid-, and post-evaluations. The insomnia digital therapeutic (DTx) 'Welt-I' by Welt, approved this year, also pursued full DCT but had to proceed as a kind of 'hybrid' DCT due to regulatory issues requiring patients to visit offline trial sites for consent. Lee said, "Welt-I achieved improvements such as a 50% reduction in time compared to previous trials, a 66% decrease in clinical site visits, and a 40% reduction in participant dropout rates," adding, "We continue to raise voices for regulatory improvements to expand DCT."
On the 15th, Wi Eui-seok, CEO of SenacleSoft, is giving a presentation at Kakao Ventures' 'Brown Bag Meeting' event held in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. [Photo by Lee Chun-hee]
Finally, Wi Ui-seok, CEO of SenacleSoft, presented a solution linking EMR and personal health records (PHR) through the cloud. Wi explained the background of developing the solution, saying, "Digital healthcare is about the interest in what doctors and patients talked about," and "We tried to create a service to manage and keep track of this, but since all this data was in EMRs, it was impossible to create."
SenacleSoft’s EMR 'OremChart' operates entirely on the cloud, so there are no spatial or temporal constraints, and no dedicated in-house servers are needed, Wi emphasized. He said, "Doctors have responded that they no longer hesitate to decide to leave work," and added, "We are preparing services linked with PHR."
Wi shared his vision, stating, "We want to enable doctors to know how patients are doing through data measured by patients themselves." The plan is for patients to measure blood pressure, blood sugar, etc., not only just before visiting or at the hospital but regularly, and if values exceed normal ranges, to send alerts to doctors even without hospital visits, enabling precision and predictive medicine. He also explained plans to include various convenience features such as recent hospital visits and insurance claim submissions.
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