Korean healthcare companies are tapping into the rapidly growing Southeast Asian market, driven by the region's active economy and expanding healthcare industry along with the economic and population growth.

According to Korea's National Institute of Medical Device Safety Information, the medical device market size in three major Southeast Asian countries -- Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam – will grow from $1.5 billion in 2019 to $2 billion by 2024.

The Southeast Asian pharmaceutical market is also growing rapidly.

Data from IQVIA, a drug market research company, showed that the average annual growth rate of the Southeast Asian pharmaceutical market was about 8 percent from 2015 to 2019, which was higher than the average annual growth rate of Korea's pharmaceutical market's 5.3 percent. The pharmaceutical market size in three major Southeast Asian countries in 2019 was about $6 billion.

Capitalizing on the immense growth potential, Korean healthcare companies are devising strategies to enter the healthcare market in Southeast Asia, leveraging cutting-edge technologies like non-face-to-face medical treatment, medical AI, and pharmaceuticals

Life Semantics, a digital health company, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to provide Dr.Call, its telehealth treatment platform, to Praram 9 Hospital, a general hospital in Thailand.

This is the first time a locally-developed telemedicine solution has been exported overseas.

According to Life Semantics, Thailand has undergone a full-scale digital transformation of healthcare since Covid-19, with increasing demand for telemedicine services and self-health diagnosis platforms for mildly ill patients.

Based on the MOU, the company plans to build a network with local medical institutions and expand smart healthcare services throughout Thailand, a company official said.

Waycen, a Korean company specializing in AI medical imaging, was selected by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute for a project that helps Korean healthcare companies accelerate their entry into the Vietnamese healthcare market.

As part of the initiative, Waycen installed its cutting-edge WAYMED Endo software for AI-based gastrointestinal and colonoscopy image analysis at St. Paul's General Hospital in Hanoi last year, successfully conducting around 5,000 tests.

"WAYMED Endo is the first-of-its-kind real-time endoscopic analysis image software in Korea that can be used simultaneously with endoscopic examinations. With its AI trained on stomach and colon endoscopic images, the software can swiftly analyze images and display suspected abnormal lesions in real-time, empowering doctors to make more accurate diagnoses.

The company plans to expand the scope of the pilot project to other national hospitals in Vietnam.

Neurophet, a company specializing in brain disease imaging AI solutions, has obtained medical device certification from the Health Sciences Authority of Singapore (HSA) for Neurophet AQUA, a brain neurodegeneration image analysis software.

Neurophet AQUA is a brain image analysis software medical device that analyzes brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) with AI technology to analyze brain atrophy and white matter degeneration observed in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia and can segment and analyze brain images in five minutes based on an AI engine.

Last year, the company also received medical device certification from the HSA for Neurophet SCALE PET, its automated positron emission tomography (PET) image analysis software.

With the certification of SCALE PET and its flagship product Aqua, the company plans to enter the Southeast Asian medical market in earnest.

Korean pharmaceutical companies’ entry into Southeast Asia also active

Korean pharmaceutical companies are also actively targeting Southeast Asian markets.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical has recently submitted its new drug applications (NDAs) for its diabetes drug Envlo, a sodium-glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT-2) inhibitor, to three countries, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand.

Envlo is the first SGLT2 inhibitor-based diabetes drug developed by a Korean pharmaceutical company.

Daewoong stressed that the drug showed efficacy equivalent to or better than existing inhibitors, even in small doses, and showed effects such as weight loss, blood pressure reduction, and improvement of insulin resistance.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical plans to accelerate its entry into ASEAN countries, starting with the submission of NDAs for Envlo in three Southeast Asian countries.

SK Bioscience has taken aim at Malaysia's shingles vaccine market.

SK bioscience's shingles vaccine Skyzoster received marketing authorization from Malaysia's National Pharmaceutical Regulatory Agency (NPRA) last year. This is the second time Skyzoster was approved in a Southeast Asian country after Thailand in 2020.

DongKoo Bio & Pharma Co. has minimized business risks while laying a stable foundation for entry into Laos by collaborating with a local company.

DongKoo Bio said it signed a contract with LVMC Holdings, a Korean-owned company established in Laos in 1997 and the number one private company in the country, to enter the Southeast Asian healthcare market.

DongKoo Bio plans to improve its performance based on cheap labor in Laos, and has also made plans to realize operating profits by exporting drugs produced in Laos to ASEAN countries.

Samjin Pharmaceutical has also signed an MOU with OPC Pharmaceutical JSC, a Vietnamese pharmaceutical company, to begin local distribution and supply of finished pharmaceuticals and health-functional foods.