Korean medical AI companies expand overseas presence with accurate solutions

An overseas specialist is using Lunit’s AI diagnostic solutions. [Courtesy of Lunit]

South Korean medical artificial intelligence (AI) companies are aggressively expanding into overseas markets as they are regarded as offering accurate AI solutions based on deep learning of vast medical data and reliability for specialization in specific areas such as lung, brain, breast, and skin.

Lunit Inc. is among them.

Lunit is expanding into the Middle East after it began the supply of its AI image analysis solution that diagnoses breast cancer to the Dubai Hospital Government in the United Arab Emirates in February.

In July, Lunit provided the same solution to all hospitals under the Sulaiman Al-Habib Medical Group (HMG), the largest healthcare organization in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.

The company has already provided AI solutions for lung disease and breast cancer diagnosis to more than 2,000 medical centers in more than 40 countries, including the U.S., the largest medical market.

“We have been promoting the business targeting overseas markets since the early stages of our company,” said Suh Beom-seok, chief executive officer of Lunit.

Suh noted that as part of efforts to facilitate overseas sales, the company actively approached global medical device companies to establish exclusive partnerships, and attracted strategic investments ahead of time to make multinational investment companies its financial partners, which became the driving force for its overseas sales growth.

As the first generation of the medical AI industry, Lunit had in mind globalization from the beginning.

It participated in the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) and the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) to present its research results and published its research results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO), an international journal in the field of oncology, to establish medical evidence.

Lunit also deep-learned data ahead of its competitors. The company’s AI imaging diagnosis accuracy rate is close to 100 percent. In the case of its flagship solution, Insight CXR, AI diagnoses 10 chest diseases such as lung nodules, cirrhosis, and pneumothorax with 97 to 99 percent accuracy in 10 seconds.

Another solution, Insight MMG, uses AI to analyze mammogram images to detect breast cancer with 96 percent accuracy.

An overseas specialist is using Lunit’s AI diagnostic solutions. [Courtesy of Lunit]

As a result of these efforts, Lunit’s AI solutions are used in more than 2,000 medical centers in more than 40 countries, including Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore.

In the U.S., Lunit officially made an entry with the approval of Insight MMG by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021 and plans to seek FDA approval for its three-dimensional (3D) breast cancer screening AI solution next year. A large-scale deal with a global big pharma company is also planned for this year.

Coreline Soft Co. is another player.

It developed Korea’s first AI simultaneous diagnosis solution for chest diseases in 2020 and has been supplying it to Korea, Germany, Italy, and other five European countries.

In February, Coreline signed a contract with International Clinic Park Monso to supply its AI thoracic diagnosis solution, AVIEW LCS PLUS, which detects lung cancer, emphysema, and coronary artery disease simultaneously with an accuracy rate of over 90 percent.

When the patient’s computed tomography (CT) image is transmitted, the AI-based early diagnosis solution for lung cancer installed on the specialist‘s personal computer analyzes the patient’s lung image to diagnose the disease.

“Over the past seven years, we have introduced our lung cancer diagnosis solution to more than 80 major and medium-sized hospitals in Korea, including the National Cancer Center and Seoul National University Hospital, and have proven its completeness,” said Kim Jin-guk, CEO at Coreline Soft. “It helped us successfully enter overseas markets such as Europe and Germany.”

JLK Inc. is targeting overseas markets with medical AI solutions that specialize in stroke.

The company, which has the largest number of stroke analysis solutions at 11, has secured the highest performance in stroke analysis by deep learning 11 million image data from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), CT, magnetic resonance angiography (MRA), and computed tomography angiography (CTA), as well as 3 million x-rays and pathology images.

Lululab Inc., a startup, has developed a solution through which AI analyzes an individual’s skin condition by deeply learning from more than two million cases of skin data that are not limited to country, race, or age.

The company provides skin diagnostic kiosks and software to more than 100 partner companies in 20 countries, including offline stores of Sephora, a cosmetics brand of the LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton S.A.

“We will continue to advance our AI solutions and expand our business into beauty, medical, and healthcare to become a global company,” said Choe Yong-joon, CEO of Lululab.

According to global research firm Statista Inc., the healthcare AI market is projected to grow at an annual average of 37 percent to $188 billion by 2030 from $11 billion in 2021.