Kakao Healthcare to launch diabetes monitoring app

South Korea’s dominant mobile platform Kakao Corp. will kick off its healthcare services this year with the launch of a diabetes monitoring app and a hospital data platform.

It is also looking to offer the services in overseas markets such as the US, Middle East and Europe, Kakao Healthcare’s Chief Executive Hwang Hee told a news conference on Thursday.

“We have picked them as our first services, considering the level of our technological development and their global business opportunity,” said the pediatric neurology specialist.

It is the first time Kakao Healthcare has given details about its business plans, since it was established in March of last year.

The diabetes monitoring app will be unveiled in the third quarter of this year to measure and track blood sugars without a blood test.

It will also record and analyze dietary habits, as well as recommend healthy menus.

Its users need to upload their food pictures to the app, which also tracks their exercise, sleep and weight measured by wearable devices.

Such data will be used to determine the relationship between a certain type of food and sleep patterns and diabetes. If the blood sugar reaches a dangerous level, the app will alert the user and their families.

The app is separate from KakaoTalk, the most popular mobile messaging app in the country.

“We will expand the services into three to four other diseases such as hypertension and hyperlipidemia within the next three to four years,” Hwang said.

He is a former professor at the Seoul National University Hospital in Bundang, Gyeonggi Province.

According to the Korean Diabetes Association, there are 5.7 million diabetes patients in the country. Another 15 million are at high risk of being diagnosed with the disease.

Kakao’s healthcare services will be based on sensors and other equipment embedded in smartphones, like an optical sensor for a photoplethysmogram (PPG). The PPG sensor measures blood volume changes in tissue.

For business customers, Kakao will launch a platform to gather and standardize hospital data so that they can be used as datasets for machine learning, as well as for clinical trials and drug development.

Kakao has been jointly developing the app with a leading South Korean general hospital.

Regarding non-contact healthcare services in the domestic market, Hwang flatly denied interest. 

Non-contact healthcare services have been temporarily introduced in South Korea since the onset of COVID-19, but have not been formally legalized.

Write to Ji-Hyun Lee at bluesky@hankyung.com

Yeonhee Kim edited this article.