Hwang Hee, CEO of Kakao Healthcare, Presents Goal of 'Precision Medicine Through Data'

Digital Therapeutics Society Fall Conference
Representative Hwang Hee Emphasizes 'Digital Phenotype'

Diabetes Solution 'Gamma' to Debut Service
Through CGM, "Allowing Diabetes Patients to Eat Pasta"

"Kakao's vision is to make people healthier through technology. If we can observe digital phenotypes, precision medicine unlike before becomes possible."

On the 24th, Hwang Hee, CEO of Kakao Healthcare, is giving a presentation at the '203 Korean Digital Therapeutics Society Autumn Conference' held at the National Mental Health Center in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul.
[Photo by Lee Chunhee]

Hwang Hee, CEO of Kakao Healthcare, said this during a special lecture at the '2023 Digital Therapeutics Society Autumn Conference' held on the 24th at the National Mental Health Center in Gwangjin-gu, Seoul. He presented two pillars for Kakao Healthcare's future business: 'Virtual Care' and 'Data Enabler.'

Regarding this combination, Hwang admitted, "(Chairman Kim Beom-su) also found it difficult to understand," and added, "People usually worry that these are two completely separate businesses." He explained that Virtual Care starts with chronic diseases such as diabetes and prediabetes and moves into the psychiatric field, while Data Enabler concerns how to refine hospital data to be used in the form of precision medicine.

The core that unites these two is the 'digital phenotype.' It is the concept that an individual's health status can be naturally understood through data collected from various digital devices used in daily life. Unlike diseases such as cancer, which have biological phenotypes due to genetic mutations, lifestyle diseases like diabetes lack appropriate phenotypes. However, Hwang suggested the possibility by saying, "If we approach vertically by disease, and if we can collect and send data such as what thousands of patients in each hospital ate and how they exercised, we can observe various digital phenotypes," adding, "In certain areas, a cyclical structure combining virtual care and data can be created."

Business Direction of Kakao Healthcare
Photo by Kakao Healthcare

Through this structure, Kakao Healthcare is currently promoting five projects: 'Gamma,' a diabetes management solution; 'Delta,' a data-driven innovation and research project; 'Beta,' which features a digital front door; 'Mu,' a behavioral health virtual care; and 'Sigma,' a musculoskeletal disease virtual care.

The fastest progress is being made with Gamma. Hwang emphasized the importance of Gamma by saying, "There are 6 million diabetes patients and 15 million prediabetes patients in Korea alone," and "Since diabetes starting in your 50s or 60s and developing in your 70s or 80s differs greatly in quality of life from diabetes starting in your 30s or 40s, if the service can intervene to slow the increase of diabetes even slightly, the resulting social impact will be significant."

The core of the solution is expected to be the Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM). Compared to the existing Self Blood Glucose Monitor (SBGM), which required cumbersome direct blood sampling, CGM is attached to the arm or abdomen and automatically measures blood glucose continuously, greatly enhancing patient convenience.

Hwang said, "CGM will be a paradigm changer," but pointed out something missing for actual change. He said, "CGM and related applications were not originally designed to change lifestyle," and emphasized, "Since the data is provided to doctors for clinical use, from the patient's perspective, there is an 'empty part' where they see the data but understand nothing." He explained that they plan to analyze CGM data to provide reports and, if cooperation with hospitals is possible, to reflect this directly in the Electronic Medical Records (EMR).

Kakao Healthcare's diabetes management solution 'PASTA' [Photo by Lee Chunhee]

The name of the service Kakao Healthcare is launching within the Gamma solution is 'PASTA.' It is an acronym formed from the first letters of Personalisation, Accessibility, Support, Technology, and Affordability. Hwang said, "Pasta is a food that diabetes patients are usually told not to eat," and added, "The concept is to let diabetes patients eat pasta and live well." He also emphasized, "There is no service fee except for the CGM sensor cost."

Hwang also highlighted that CGM developers are actively participating. He said, "Dexcom has never opened its Software Development Kit (SDK) to third parties," and added, "They have agreed to allow their app to be replaced by the PASTA app in Korea, Japan, and China." He also explained that they are collaborating with other CGM companies such as i-SENS, insulin pen manufacturer Novo Nordisk, and CJ CheilJedang, which is developing foods reflecting blood sugar management.

Regarding the data-driven project Delta, he explained, "Although there are many hospitals in Korea, each is somewhat insufficient in scale," and "To study specific diseases, data from multiple hospitals must be combined," describing it as building a data analysis platform through collaboration. Hwang said, "We are working with Google Cloud," and evaluated the potential highly by saying, "When we actually ran federated learning, even Google was surprised at how well it worked."

Regarding the Mu project, Hwang reaffirmed the position that it will not be conducted in Korea as it might appear to be remote medical care. He said, "In Korea, fees are not properly set," and "Due to a shortage of medical resources, we plan to operate in the U.S., where Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) is being conducted."

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