The government has selected six consortia and will provide support to speed the introduction of domestic medical artificial intelligence (AI) technology into hospitals. The aim is to help AI medical devices move beyond development and Ministery of Food and Drug Safety approval to actual clinical use and national health insurance coverage.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) said on the 4th that they held a kick-off briefing and signing ceremony for the "AI application product rapid commercialization support project (AX-Sprint)" and began support in the digital medical device sector.
In Korea, even when AI medical devices received Ministery of Food and Drug Safety approval, it often took a long time for hospitals to adopt them and for national health insurance fees to apply. The government plans to support cooperation between medical institutions and corporations to help verify in clinical settings, secure real-world data, and speed market entry.
In this project, a total of six consortia were selected across three areas: brain diseases, cancer diagnosis, and cardiovascular diseases.
In the brain disease field, JLK(322510) and Huray were selected. JLK will use a stroke-diagnosis AI at 22 hospitals, including Hallym University Sacred Heart Hospital and Seoul National University Bundang Hospital, to verify its effect on improving patient outcomes. Huray, together with Severance Hospital and others, will evaluate the accuracy and clinical utility of an MRI-based Parkinson's disease diagnosis AI.
In the cancer diagnosis field, Lunit(328130) and Prevenotics will participate. Lunit will apply chest X-ray and breast cancer diagnosis AI at 10 hospitals, including Seoul National University Hospital and Kangbuk Samsung Hospital, to secure 250,000 cases of real-world data and pursue entry into national health insurance fees. Prevenotics plans to use a gastroscopy AI at Seoul National University Hospital, Severance Hospital, and others to verify the accuracy of diagnosing precancerous gastric lesions and the effect of reducing unnecessary biopsies.
In the cardiovascular field, Synergy AI and Mediwhale were selected. Synergy AI will evaluate the performance of predicting arrhythmia risk using a biosignal-based AI at 15 hospitals, including Seoul St. Mary's Hospital and Korea University Guro Hospital. Mediwhale will use a fundus image-based AI to assess cardiovascular disease risk and pursue listing of related national health insurance fees.
Through this project, the government plans to secure data actually used in medical institutions and prove clinical effectiveness to accelerate the commercialization of AI medical devices.