To prevent cardiovascular disease, it is important to find arrhythmia, where the heart beats irregularly. Most medical institutions use a 'Holter' electrocardiogram recorder for diagnosing arrhythmias, which requires the patient to undergo testing while attached to a heavy and complex electrocardiogram for 24 hours. While accurate examinations are possible, accessibility is diminished due to discomfort.
Seers Technology's 'MobiCare' has solved this issue. Meeting at the Seers Technology office in Bundang, Seongnam, on the 10th, CEO Lee Young-shin noted, "Our product is characterized by greatly enhancing the convenience for patients." It has simplified the complex and heavy electrocardiogram so that patients can wear it all day without discomfort.
Seers Technology introduces itself as an artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostic solution company based on wearable medical devices. It may sound complex and lengthy, but simply put, it develops wearable diagnostic devices and provides services that analyze diagnostic results using AI.
While there are already several companies making AI solutions to diagnose arrhythmia, few can create wearable devices like Seers Technology. Seers Technology was able to combine the two technologies thanks to researchers from the Korea Electronics Technology Institute (KETI).
◇First investment in 10 years since founding
It was not successful from the beginning. CEO Lee Young-shin said, "I founded the company in 2009, but I received seed investment in 2019," and added, "At first, I did not know that the medical device business would take such a long time, and back then, the accessibility to AI technology was low, which made it difficult."
He explained, "I endured a 10-year death valley by creating products for other corporations, and coincidentally, as deep learning technology developed, accessibility to AI improved, allowing for the enhancement of our algorithms and speeding up business operations."
Death valley refers to the situation where startups in their 3rd to 5th year face management difficulties due to funding challenges at the time they need capital the most. Seers Technology received help from the Multi-Ministry Medical Device Research and Development Project Group in overcoming this death valley.
CEO Lee noted, "Since founding in 2009, we have conducted various government projects, and it is rare to find cases, like the Multi-Ministry Project Group, that help through to actual commercialization," adding, "They assisted in all processes, from licensing and clinical trials to validation and launch."
◇Expansion past death valley into subscription services
Seers Technology was listed on the KOSDAQ market last year. It succeeded in going public five years after MobiCare was launched in 2019. This rapid growth was possible due to both technological prowess and a clearly defined business model.
Seers Technology introduced the first wearable AI medical device subscription service in the country. CEO Lee stated, "From the perspective of hospitals, it’s not easy to pay for digital healthcare devices, so we created a subscription service that allows hospitals to borrow devices for free."
Seers Technology earns usage fees from hospitals based on the usage of MobiCare. Additionally, they provide a separate premium model that offers precise analytical results under the direct supervision of specialists from affiliated arrhythmia specialty hospitals. As of March this year, the number of outpatient prescription tests for MobiCare has reached 260,000. Of the 47 top-tier general hospitals in the nation, 44 utilize MobiCare. Since last year, the service has also started in major health screening centers.
Last year, they also launched the 'Think' service for monitoring hospitalized patients. Think allows for the remote monitoring of patients' biometric signals. Hospitals can adopt it through a bulk purchase method, but they have also created a subscription service based on usage, similar to MobiCare, to reduce the burden on hospitals. CEO Lee explained, "Nurses walk around taking temperatures and blood pressures, and as we saw during the medical disaster, it’s hard to manage properly when staff is lacking," adding, "Think enables real-time monitoring and analysis of patients' biometric signals."
Think has been adopted by over 20 hospitals, including Hallym University Medical Center, and about 600 beds are currently utilized. CEO Lee stated, "We plan to expand to 3,000 beds within this year, and since there are 700,000 beds in the country alone, the market can expand significantly."
◇Business expansion potential… Full-scale entry into overseas markets
CEO Lee stated that MobiCare and Think will connect through various services. He remarked, "Using our wearable devices, we can diagnose not only electrocardiograms but also various biometric signals, including oxygen saturation," and added, "Based on this, monitoring for sleep, predicting ovulation in gynecological infertility patients, and monitoring electrolyte imbalances in dialysis or thyroid patients will also be possible."
The ability to expand this way is because Seers Technology's technology is not just a simple electrocardiogram; it can diagnose various biometric signals based on wearable biosensors and AI. This technology is applied to hospitalized patients through Think. CEO Lee emphasized that expanding Think would enable wearable AI diagnostics and monitoring across the patient care continuum.
CEO Lee described this model as 'the Secom of the medical community.' Just as Secom remotely monitors for intruders, Think intends to remotely monitor and analyze patients' conditions. CEO Lee emphasized, "Once patients leave the hospital, they don't receive any care," explaining, "We promise to remotely monitor patients at home on behalf of hospitals and doctors," allowing home patients to alert healthcare institutions of any signs of abnormality in real-time, just like hospitalized patients, and to schedule consultations.
CEO Lee emphasized that Seers Technology's strengths lie in its combination of AI technology and manufacturing capabilities. Because it directly creates sensors and diagnostic devices, platform expansion is possible with merely a software upgrade. For instance, while Think currently monitors vital signs, it is expected to link with other companies' products to monitor indicators such as intravenous fluids, continuous blood glucose levels, and residual urine.
Seers Technology is also preparing for full-scale entry into overseas markets. In Asian countries such as Mongolia, Hong Kong, Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Thailand, operations have already begun, and they are also entering regions like the United States and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). CEO Lee noted, "It is crucial to enter overseas markets in the medical device sector, but to do so, we must first resolve intellectual property issues," stating that they received significant help from the Multi-Ministry Project Group throughout this process.