[단독 ]Kakao joins hands with LG Electronics to get gold in’medicine’

Kakao joined hands with LG Electronics for a medical data solution business that utilizes medical data in Asan Hospital in Seoul and Severance Hospital in Yonsei University. According to the investment banking (IB) industry on the 18th, Kakao Investment recently invested in’Fi Digital Healthcare,’ which was invested to collaborate with Yonsei University Severance Hospital, and’Asan Kakao Medical Data,’ which was invested with Asan Hospital and Hyundai Industrial Holdings in Seoul. I received 100 million won. Kakao plans to merge the two subsidiaries in the future to make use of medical data expertise and actively promote medical big data solution business. Currently, the IB industry estimates that the two subsidiaries have already exceeded 100 billion won when combined.

In particular, LG Electronics was included as one of the major investment institutions (LP) in this investment. LG Electronics jointly develops medical artificial intelligence (AI) with Kakao at Yonsei University Severance Hospital and builds a’hospital-oriented IoT-based medical system’ in the field of Internet of Medical Things (IoT) standards and security. have.

An official from LG Electronics said, “I have participated in a pilot project with Kakao at Yonsei University Severance Hospital since last year,” and said, “It is not a large scale, but I know that we have invested in new business in the medical data field.”

Kakao’s successive cooperation with hospitals is because they believe that they can create added value through AI technology and hospital medical data. At the time of the 2019 agreement, Kakao and Yonsei University Severance Hospital signed a cooperation to improve the quality of medical services based on AI. Yonsei University Severance Hospital provides medical data usage rights and medical information system management know-how for 6.5 million patients to Pi Digital Healthcare. Kakao plans to provide personalized’precision medical care’ in the medical field after de-identifying and anonymizing data by analyzing data with advanced technology. In the long term, it is interpreted as a strategy that considers the possibility of advancing into various healthcare businesses including telemedicine if regulations are relaxed.

Domestic hospitals have been accumulating vast amounts of health and medical data, but they became available after passing the Data 3 Act last year. Until now, the biggest obstacle to promoting healthcare business for domestic information technology (IT) companies has been regulation, but the importance of digital healthcare has emerged amid the Corona 19 crisis, and the institutional environment has improved than before. The government plans to actively standardize this year by operating a certification system to increase the compatibility of the electronic medical record system (EMR), which is a computerized data of patient charts this year. The domestic hospital’s EMR adoption rate is also far exceeding 90%, so only the currently accumulated public medical big data exceeds the scale of 6 conditions.

In addition, this year, the National Cancer Center will come up with data that combines the analysis of cancer treatment effects and pseudonyms of cancer treatment clinical information by combining population data from medical and statistical offices.

Complications of cancer patients, research on predicting chronic diseases, combined data using cancer treatment clinical information and health insurance service information are also available. If this information is combined into the 7 major data projects promoted by the government and two fields are the healthcare field, the use of domestic medical data is expected to ignite.

Kakao Chairman of the Board of Directors Kim Bum-soo is said to have been interested in the medical data industry using blockchain after visiting Estonia in 2017. Since then, in 2018 and 2019, they established and invested in a corporation related to medical data business with Seoul Asan Hospital and Yonsei University Severance Hospital, respectively.

An official from Kakao said, “We are engaged in medical data business centering on Kakao Invest,” and said, “The business that has been promoted by looking at the potential for market growth is showing results with recent large hospitals.”

Naver also recently recruited professor Na Gun-ho, a professor at Yonsei University Severance Hospital, who is an expert in robotic surgery, and entrusted the in-house hospital to its new headquarters. The in-house hospital in the new office building is equipped with various medical departments, examination facilities, and facilities for musculoskeletal treatment management in a space that is more than three times larger than the existing office-building hospital.

There is also a medical examination center in preparation for blood tests, urine tests, and x-rays. It is known that specialized facilities such as physical therapy room and X-ray radiation room will focus on preventing and managing chronic diseases. EMR standardization is also the content that Naver has been emphasizing in terms of advanced AI solutions.

Naver recently recruited an additional medical manpower. Naver, which started telemedicine through LINE in Japan, is believed to have set out to strengthen the capabilities of smart healthcare organizations targeting overseas markets in the future.

[이동인 기자 / 김시균 기자 / 오대석 기자]
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