KT and Hanmi Pharm Promote Business Collaboration with Digital Pharm

KT Vice President Song Jae-ho (right), Hanmi Pharm CEO Woo Jong-su (left), and Digital Pharm CEO Kim Dae-jin (center) are taking a commemorative photo at the launch ceremony held on the 17th.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Hye-seon] KT and pharmaceutical company Hanmi Pharmaceutical have made a joint investment in the digital therapeutics (DTx) and electronic medicine specialist company ‘Digital Pharm’ and held a launch ceremony on the 19th.

This business collaboration is the first case in Korea where an information and communication technology (ICT) company, a pharmaceutical company, and a medical institution have combined their respective capabilities. Digital Pharm is a subsidiary of the Catholic University Technology Holdings Company, founded in November 2021 by Professor Kim Dae-jin of Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, Catholic University, an authority in the field, with the goal of developing digital therapeutics for addiction improvement such as alcohol and nicotine and enhancing business competitiveness. KT and Hanmi Pharmaceutical participated as strategic investors in Digital Pharm in April.

Going forward, KT will be responsible for developing the digital therapeutics platform, establishing business strategies, and providing pipelines (digital therapeutics and electronic medicine), while Hanmi Pharmaceutical will focus on establishing B2H (business-to-hospital) business strategies for digital therapeutics, marketing to activate prescriptions, and responding to regulatory approvals to maximize mutual synergy.

Digital Pharm will continuously discover new pipelines for digital therapeutics in various disease areas and support the clinical research infrastructure essential for commercialization development. Confirmatory clinical trials for digital therapeutics related to addiction such as alcohol and nicotine, currently under development, are scheduled to begin in the second half of this year. Additionally, the company will focus on developing digital therapeutics for various diseases such as hearing loss and dysphagia, as well as non-face-to-face platforms to utilize these treatments.

The global digital therapeutics market is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 23%, reaching approximately KRW 22.4 trillion by 2028. Since the domestic digital therapeutics market is still in its early stages, Digital Pharm, as a specialized company, is expected to lead the market.

KT is also conducting exploratory clinical trials for digital therapeutics related to chronic diseases such as heart failure, with results expected within the year. Furthermore, KT plans to target the domestic market by securing business rights for the attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) electronic medicine previously held by the U.S. electronic medicine development company ‘NeuroSigma’.

Previously, KT prepared to expand its business in the digital healthcare field by investing USD 5 million (approximately KRW 6 billion) in NeuroSigma in December 2021. NeuroSigma is the developer of ‘eTNS,’ the first electronic medicine approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for ADHD, and is expanding its business scope to treat neurological and psychiatric disorders such as epilepsy, depression, and drug-resistant epilepsy. KT and NeuroSigma are cooperating to advance the ‘eTNS’ product and commercialize it domestically, and they plan to link this with Digital Pharm, in which they have jointly invested this time.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.