Big Pharmaceutical Companies Preparing to Enter Healthcare Service Markets

South Korea's pharmaceutical companies such as Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd. and Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. are planning to jump into healthcare service markets as they look to change their paradigms from manufacturing-based pharmaceutical industries to accurate medical services. As large pharmaceutical companies that possess hospitals, pharmacies, and patients as their customers start jumping into these markets, changes in dynamics of healthcare service markets are expected.

According to digital healthcare and pharmaceutical industries on the 14th, Hanmi IT, which is a subsidiary of Hanmi Pharm. Co., Ltd., is planning to commercialize its health management service called 'Life Graph' by end of this year. Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is also attempting to commercialize its services from a related IT company. Both of these companies are top pharmaceutical companies in South Korea that rank top 5 in sales and it is likely that other pharmaceutical companies will look to provide healthcare services as well.

Hanmi IT’s 'Life Graph' is a personalized health management application that understands elements that threaten health such as smoking, diabetes, and blood pressure. This application was developed in 2015 and Hanmi IT is currently looking for a business model.

After participating in Ministry of Science, ICP and Future Planning's (MSIP) mobile health management service project in 2016, Hanmi IT started working on commercialization in this year. MSIP selected chronic diseases' risks along with Ministry of Health and Welfare and is going to provide personalized health management service from local governments' health centers and private hospitals. It is going to invest $6.13 million (7.00 billion KRW) in this year to expand this operation.

Hanmi IT has formed a consortium with mobile healthcare company called Noom and others. It is planning to establish a healthcare platform based on Life Graph and is going to combine it with healthcare management applications that are provided by Noom and others. It is planning to prevent diseases from getting worse through health management services that are provided by Hanmi IT consortium and private hospitals.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. is also preparing for health management service businesses by utilizing its related companies such as Insung Info and Mcircle. Type of its service is expected to be similar as Hanmi IT's service. It is going to work with related IT companies and digital healthcare solution companies.

Pharmaceutical industries' healthcare service projects will focus on securing data for development and sales of medicine and medicine supplies. Pharmaceutical companies have significant amount of clinical information of patients that they had obtained through development process of medicine and medicine supplies. On the other hand, they lack information in risks of diseases for potential customers. Through healthcare services, they are going to look to secure data on risks of chronic illnesses that are very valuable in developing new medicines, seeking demands, and selling products.

Current medical industries are indicated as accurate medical treatment that is based on data from human body, clinical information, dielectric, and life log (daily behavior). According to LG Economic Research Institute, global accurate medical treatment markets including healthcare will be worth $119 billion (136 trillion KRW) by 2025.

Pharmaceutical industries are looking to securing data in order to develop and sell personalized medicine and medicine supplies. Most of South Korea's pharmaceutical companies are still at a beginning stage when it comes to responding to 'bio Big Data.' Not only are they lacking in systems that collect data but most of them do not have analysis platforms.

"IBM Watson is also focusing on securing data." said a representative for Hanmi IT. "Rather than just focusing on making sales from services, it is more important to respond to trend of global healthcare markets."

Changes in markets are also expected. Until now, healthcare markets were led by small and medium app developers that connect healthcare markets and hospitals. There is a chance that ecosystems can be reorganized as IT companies from pharmaceutical industries, which possess clinical experiences and large amount of customers such as hospitals and patients jump into healthcare markets.

"If pharmaceutical companies, which have major health industries such as hospitals, patients, and pharmacies as their customers jump into healthcare markets, there influence will be significant." said a representative in this industry. "If they utilize data that they have obtained through services in development and sales of medicine and medicine supplies, pharmaceutical industries that have remained as manufacturing businesses will become high-tech industries."

Staff Reporter Jung, Yongcheol | [email protected]