Yonsei University Health System

Qure.ai nets $65M for foundational AI Qure.ai has raised $65 million in a Series D funding round led by Lightspeed and 360 ONE Asset. The company said it will use its fresh funds to invest more in foundational AI models, as well as acquire complementary startups in medical technology. It will also be used to accelerate its expansion in the United States and other markets. Early this year, the Mumbai-based company obtained two major clearances from the United States Food and Drug Administration: a breakthrough device designation for its tuberculosis screening AI solution, qSpot-TB, and a 510(k) clearance for the lung nodule on the qXR AI-powered chest X-ray software. Mediwhale bags $12M to seek US FDA approval South Korean health diagnostics firm Mediwhale has scored $12 million in a Series A2 funding round led by the Korea Development Bank. The company claims to offer the world's first retina-based solution – called Reti-CVD – that uses AI to assess cardiovascular disease risk. It plans to use its new funds to pursue a US FDA approval for Reti-CVD. The software was reportedly rolled out across the Yonsei University Health System early this year. "We are determined to secure FDA De Novo approval by 2025, with plans to launch our product in the United States shortly thereafter," CEO Kevin Choi said in a statement. Besides securing a regulatory clearance, Mediwhale also seeks to improve its AI further and develop new solutions to predict chronic kidney disease risk. Mediwhale last raised $2 million in a pre-Series A funding round in 2021 and $9 million in a Series A round in 2023. Huawei launches medical imaging AI Huawei recently unveiled a new AI-powered solution for analysing medical images. Called "Medical Technology Digitalization 2.0," the technology enables smart segmentation, detection, and quantitative analysis of medical images using AI with up to 98% accuracy. Huawei claims the solution can shorten disease diagnosis time by 40%, although it has not specified which disease. Additionally, the AI solution can also be applied to ultrasound devices running on the OpenHarmony operating system. The Chinese tech giant worked with several local medical technology companies, including MED Imaging AI, Wanxiang, Beijing DeepWise, and KFBIO, to develop the solution, which has been implemented in such major projects as the Fourth People's Hospital in Shenyang, capital of China’s northeast Liaoning Province. Korean pharma turns to AI for new drug discovery Korean pharmaceutical company GI Innovation is pursuing the application of AI for new drug development. It recently signed a memorandum of understanding with local company i-Divine to develop its core cancer drug pipelines and utilise the latter's AI solution to discover new cancer therapy targets. i-Divine's AI is based on a large language model trained on over a billion patents, papers, and real-time biological data sourced globally. It was previously utilised to analyse the success potential of 16,000 new drug substances, including one of GI Innovation's anti-cancer drug pipelines. MediBuddy adopts Philips' predictive heart AI MediBuddy in India is integrating Philips' heart health monitoring platform into its mobile health application. The AI-based longitudinal triaging solution called HeartPrint tracks and assesses key biomarkers from a person's finger when scanned through their smartphone's camera. These include cardiovascular age, diabetes risk, OSA risk, cardio-respiratory fitness index, heart rate analysis, cardiac index, blood pressure variability, and stress disorder prediction. The AI solution also analyses patterns indicating a person's risk of developing heart disease, overall health deterioration, heart resilience, and short and long-term changes in cardiac function.

Kakao Healthcare has unveiled its latest AI-driven mobile diabetes management app. Called PASTA (Personalised, Accessible, Supportive, Tech-enabled, and Affordable), the app currently links to two CGM devices: CareSens Air by local manufacturer i-SENS and Dexcom's G7. The app will also pair with the Mallya smart cap for insulin pens by the second quarter. Once the CGM device is linked, the app automatically displays details about the user's blood sugar in real-time via Bluetooth. It also allows users to record their meals, exercise, insulin doses, and medication. The app features vision AI that automatically provides information about nutrition, calories, and food types of their meals. Another feature is a handy summary report of the user's blood sugar reading with indicators pointing out which ones are good and bad. These summaries are also made available for sharing with the user's family. It can also provide a guide to managing blood sugar levels and creating healthy lifestyle habits. Now available on both Android and iOS devices, the PASTA app was named as such, likening the many ways to manage diabetes to the variety of pasta. Meanwhile, Kakao Healthcare developed Pasta Connect Pro, a dashboard for doctors where they can check their patients' blood sugar trends and lifestyle changes in near real time. It is planned to be linked with hospital EMRs to provide convenience of data input to staff and patients. In a statement, Kakao Healthcare disclosed its plans to expand its latest digital diabetes management app and service internationally, starting in Japan this year. Seegene, a provider of PCR-based (polymerase chain reaction) diagnostic solutions from South Korea, has onboarded Microsoft as a tech partner to its SG OneSystem, which collaborates with scientists and experts globally to develop syndromic quantitative PCR diagnostic tests. A host of Microsoft services will be incorporated into Seegene's Digitalised Development System (SGDSS) which powers the SG OneSystem. For one, it will integrate Microsoft Azure services, including the Azure OpenAI Service, to support data interaction and analysis for researchers dealing with big data. The AI-driven analytics platform Microsoft Fabric will be deployed to amalgamate Seegene's data and introduce such capabilities as data integration, data engineering, data science, data monitoring, real-time analytics, and business intelligence. Microsoft 365 Copilot will also integrate AI-driven assistance to "accelerate productivity, foster innovation and enhance creativity," according to a press release. Additionally, Seegene said it will work with Microsoft on next-generation management and analytics for PCR data and explore future ventures within healthcare. Singaporean medtech Aevice Health and its London-based partner Jiva.ai will be collaborating to develop an AI that can predict asthma exacerbations. Funded by Innovate UK and Enterprise Singapore, the collaborative project aims to harness health data collected through the AeviceMD wearable stethoscope to create an AI-driven early warning system for asthmatic patients. Yonsei University Health System has rolled out across its clinical practices an AI diagnostic solution for assessing risks of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Developed by South Korean startup Mediwhale, Reti-CVD uses retina scans to detect CVD risks. Researchers from South Korea have developed an AI model that can potentially predict the likelihood of sepsis. In a study, whose findings were published in the Light: Science & Applications journal by Nature Portfolio, they ran 3D images of the CD8 T cells, a potential biomarker of sepsis, into their AI model and were compared against images of healthy cells in a controlled group. The AI was later found to predict the likelihood of sepsis from analysing CD8 T cell images with up to 99% accuracy. The research team was comprised of academics and doctors from Yonsei University College of Medicine, Severance Hospital, and biotech company Tomocube.

A government-funded initiative to seamlessly connect hospitals, government, insurers, and medical device manufacturers in the whole care process based on digital therapeutics and big data has commenced at Yonsei University Health System. Yonsei's Severance Hospital recently started prescribing the insomnia DTx Somzz through the integrated platform called Connect-DTx. HOW IT WORKS Connect-DTx can collect health data from the patient user in near real-time once prescribed for DTx. Doctors can use this data to adjust and personalise their patient's treatment. When used by admitted patients, Connect-DTx can link to the hospital EMR to also collect their data. Beyond the care team, the platform also connects with government regulators and insurers. The National Health Insurance Corporation and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, for example, can easily inquire into the progress of DTx-based treatments and process insurance claims and reviews through Connect-DTx. Additionally, DTx manufacturers can track which health institutions are using their products without reaching out to them individually to confirm. Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, Boramae Hospital, Wonju Severance Christian Hospital, Korea University Anam Hospital, and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital are all in the process of onboarding and implementing Connect-DTx. More DTx devices for other conditions, such as dementia, Parkinson's disease, and smoking cessation, will be introduced soon. WHY IT MATTERS In 2022, YUHS received 7.8 billion won ($5.8 million) from the South Korean Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to develop Connect-DTx. The aim is to provide convenient and safe access to patient health information collected in near real-time from DTx devices and hospital EMRs. This allows doctors to tap into data and be better informed before making personalised treatments for their patients. It also enables the government and insurers to easily review and process insurance claims. THE LARGER TREND Somzz, an insomnia DTx developed by Aimmed, is the first of its kind to be approved in South Korea. It delivers cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) that is said to help increase sleep in patients. Just four months after Aimmed's clearance in January 2023, Welt received the second approval for its insomnia DTx called WELT-I. These market approvals come as the number of South Koreans dealing with insomnia increased almost twice over the past decade. Today, at least 15% of the population is dealing with chronic insomnia. CBT has become a first-line treatment for this condition, and incorporating it in mobile applications is helping bridge access to this treatment, which is said to be more effective than popping regular sleeping pills. ON THE RECORD "The development of the Connect-DTx platform has made it possible for industry stakeholders such as medical institutions, government ministries and medical device companies to conveniently and safely utilise medical data as well as provide personalised treatment to patients," YUHS Digital Health Department head Joon-Seok Lim said about Connect-DTx. "We expect this to be a catalyst for an era of cutting-edge medical care based on big data that systematically analyses patients’ daily life algorithms and treatment patterns that were once difficult to ascertain," he added.