Novo Nordisk, Kakao partner for diabetes digital healthcare service

Novo Nordisk Pharma Korea, a local operation of the Danish big pharma, and Kakao Healthcare will jointly provide a digital healthcare service for diabetes patients, the companies said Tuesday.

Kakao Healthcare CEO Hwang Hee, left, and Sasha Semienchuk, general manager of Novo Nordisk Pharma Korea, pose for a photo during a signing ceremony for a joint digital healthcare service at Novo Nordisk’s local office in southern Seoul, Monday. [KAKAO HEALTHCARE]

Novo Nordisk Pharma Korea, a local operation of the Danish big pharma, and Kakao Healthcare will jointly provide a digital healthcare service for diabetes patients, the companies said Tuesday.

With the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Monday, the plan is to combine Novo Nordisk’s Mallya Smart Sensor — which is connected to conventional insulin pens to automatically collect and log daily insulin injection data — and Kakao’s Project Gamma, a digital blood sugar level monitoring service, into one integrated service for diabetes patients in Korea.

Novo Nordisk aims to introduce the Mallya Smart Sensor service in the latter half of 2023. The integrated service will be available next year.

With the integrated service, patients will be able to monitor the real-time data of their blood sugar levels with Kakao’s Gamma mobile application and inject insulin using Novo Nordisk’s Mally Smart Sensor. The companies will incorporate other medical data provided by hospital information systems into the service moving forward.

The MOU signing ceremony for the joint project was held at Novo Nordisk’s Seoul office in southern Seoul on Monday, with Sasha Semienchuk, general manager of Novo Nordisk Pharma Korea, and Kakao Healthcare CEO Hwang Hee in attendance.

“Korea has one of the most advanced digital environments in the world," Semienchuk said in a release. He continued "Unfortunately, in parallel, Korea has the fastest aging population in the world and Koreans are increasingly impacted by diabetes,” adding that “we believe that the convergence of medicines, devices and healthcare software can have a real impact on improving the lives of these patients.”

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]