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| Hwang Hee, CEO of Kakao Healthcare, speaks during a press conference at Kakao's building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Thursday. Courtesy of Kakao Healthcare |
By Baek Byung-yeul
Kakao Healthcare, a subsidiary of internet company Kakao, revealed a detailed vision for digital healthcare, saying it will launch a blood sugar management app in the third quarter of this year, according to the CEO, Thursday.
"Digital healthcare has emerged as a lucrative business," Hwang Hee, CEO of Kakao Healthcare, said during a press conference at Kakao's building in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province.
The business is divided into prevention, treatment and aftercare. Many industry indicators show the market size of this business is around 100 trillion won ($77 billion) and will grow to 700 trillion won, which will be bigger than the semiconductor business," Hwang said.
"Currently, the government is focusing more on treatment, but how to create value and develop the market in terms of prevention and aftercare will be what both the country and society want," he added.
To make digital healthcare profitable, Hwang said the company decided to focus on managing metabolic diseases such as high blood pressure, diabetes and high cholesterol, hoping to create business opportunities involving these ailments that require daily care when combined with its mobile technology.
Kakao has selected digital healthcare as another growth engine. As part of the plan, Kakao Healthcare was established in March 2022 and Hwang, a professor of pediatrics at Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, was appointed as its CEO.
"We aim to pursue a healthcare business based on Kakao's strengths. Kakao is good at technologies that make it convenient for users to do things that they were uncomfortable with. So we decided to provide an easy and simple healthcare platform that anyone can use," he said.
Under the goal, the company will introduce a mobile-based blood sugar management service that can be used with a continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) device in the third quarter.
Using the data collected by the CGM and other wearable devices, the company's healthcare platform will provide a guide to help users manage their health easily.
The company will expand the scope of its health management service to high blood pressure, high cholesterol and obesity to help users manage blood sugar and correct their lifestyle.
"A health management service should be simple for anyone to follow. Our goal is to simplify what was difficult. We will make it the easiest way to take care of users' health if the users have the will to correct their habits and lifestyle," the CEO said.
He also emphasized that Kakao Healthcare will not venture into contactless medical care services.
"We can create a solution for the contactless medical care service within two months, but there is no social consensus on this service and it is legally unclear. So we thought it was not very desirable because some startups have already entered the market," Hwang said.
But he added it will be possible for the company to enter global markets like the United States where the service is legally available.
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