First Domestically Produced Endoscope
Led by Startup MedInTech
Endoscopy market dominated by Japanese and German companies
“Competitive in control-handle weight, system design, and price”
A domestic startup has thrown down the gauntlet in the endoscopy market long dominated by Japanese and German companies. The company is MedInTech, a startup founded in 2020. The endoscope developed by MedInTech received Class II medical device approval from Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) this past August. The company is currently awaiting approval of a version designed for experienced clinicians, with the goal of final commercialization by the end of this year or early next year.
In an interview on the 30th, MedInTech CEO Lee Chi-won (34) said, “We expect domestically produced endoscope products to be supplied to Korean hospitals as early as the first half of next year, or at the latest in the second half,” adding, “We will begin full-scale competition with overseas companies in both price and quality.”
Currently, Japanese endoscope products are known to cost more than KRW 100 million, with new models priced at up to twice that amount. Lee said, “As a startup, early market entry is crucial, so we are considering setting the price at around KRW 90 million.”
![이치원 메디인테크 대표 [사진=변선진 기자]](https://cdn.imweb.me/upload/S20201110973f21c62f350/40b7cd9357342.png)
Lee Chi-won, CEO of MedInTech
[Photo = Reporter Byun Seon-jin]
An endoscope is a highly precise medical device that inserts a camera-equipped scope through the mouth or anus to examine the stomach, colon, and other internal organs for abnormalities. Of the endoscopes introduced in Korean hospitals, seven out of ten are products of the Japanese medical device company Olympus. The remaining share of the market has been dominated by Japanese and German companies such as Fujifilm, Pentax, and Karl Storz.
The domestically produced endoscope developed by MedInTech is characterized by the motorization of the control unit, which is the core hardware of the endoscope. In conventional products, medical staff must hold a handle weighing up to 750 grams and manually control the up, down, left, and right movements of the scope. MedInTech reduced the handle weight by about half and installed motors within the system, enabling scope movement to be controlled solely through electrical signals.
In addition, the company stated that by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the endoscopy system, misdiagnosis rates have been significantly reduced. The system alerts physicians if there are areas of the stomach or colon that may have been missed during examination, or precisely indicates the size of detected abnormalities. Tasks that previously required physicians to manually control the air-water section in real time using their left middle or index finger when debris appeared on the camera are now automatically assessed and executed by AI algorithms.
“Existing endoscopes have a misdiagnosis rate of up to 30 percent. This indicates a very large gap in performance between experienced and less-experienced physicians,” Lee said. “If the domestically produced endoscope being launched this time becomes established in the market, it will be very positive in terms of patient safety as well.”
MedInTech aims to enter overseas markets by 2025. Lee stated, “We expect to complete approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within two years.” In the mid to long term, the company envisions becoming a robotic medical device platform company by integrating surgical robot technology into endoscopes to enable procedures such as natural orifice surgery.
Lee graduated from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University and completed an integrated master’s and doctoral program in biomedical engineering at graduate school. He founded MedInTech together with fellow researchers during his tenure at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI). Just one year after its founding, MedInTech was selected for a KRW 9.5 billion, pan-government, full-cycle medical device R&D project. In addition to the five-year endoscope development project, the company received customized consulting, including patent analysis, feedback from medical professionals, and one-on-one matching with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
“Many startups become discouraged at the product development stage, and opportunities like this are not easy to come by,” Lee said. “Thanks to the government’s commitment to nurturing startups and localizing core technologies, we were able to receive support at exactly the right points.”
View the original article
https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2023113007560153303
First Domestically Produced Endoscope
Led by Startup MedInTech
Endoscopy market dominated by Japanese and German companies
“Competitive in control-handle weight, system design, and price”
A domestic startup has thrown down the gauntlet in the endoscopy market long dominated by Japanese and German companies. The company is MedInTech, a startup founded in 2020. The endoscope developed by MedInTech received Class II medical device approval from Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) this past August. The company is currently awaiting approval of a version designed for experienced clinicians, with the goal of final commercialization by the end of this year or early next year.
In an interview on the 30th, MedInTech CEO Lee Chi-won (34) said, “We expect domestically produced endoscope products to be supplied to Korean hospitals as early as the first half of next year, or at the latest in the second half,” adding, “We will begin full-scale competition with overseas companies in both price and quality.”
Currently, Japanese endoscope products are known to cost more than KRW 100 million, with new models priced at up to twice that amount. Lee said, “As a startup, early market entry is crucial, so we are considering setting the price at around KRW 90 million.”
Lee Chi-won, CEO of MedInTech
[Photo = Reporter Byun Seon-jin]
An endoscope is a highly precise medical device that inserts a camera-equipped scope through the mouth or anus to examine the stomach, colon, and other internal organs for abnormalities. Of the endoscopes introduced in Korean hospitals, seven out of ten are products of the Japanese medical device company Olympus. The remaining share of the market has been dominated by Japanese and German companies such as Fujifilm, Pentax, and Karl Storz.
The domestically produced endoscope developed by MedInTech is characterized by the motorization of the control unit, which is the core hardware of the endoscope. In conventional products, medical staff must hold a handle weighing up to 750 grams and manually control the up, down, left, and right movements of the scope. MedInTech reduced the handle weight by about half and installed motors within the system, enabling scope movement to be controlled solely through electrical signals.
In addition, the company stated that by incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the endoscopy system, misdiagnosis rates have been significantly reduced. The system alerts physicians if there are areas of the stomach or colon that may have been missed during examination, or precisely indicates the size of detected abnormalities. Tasks that previously required physicians to manually control the air-water section in real time using their left middle or index finger when debris appeared on the camera are now automatically assessed and executed by AI algorithms.
“Existing endoscopes have a misdiagnosis rate of up to 30 percent. This indicates a very large gap in performance between experienced and less-experienced physicians,” Lee said. “If the domestically produced endoscope being launched this time becomes established in the market, it will be very positive in terms of patient safety as well.”
MedInTech aims to enter overseas markets by 2025. Lee stated, “We expect to complete approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) within two years.” In the mid to long term, the company envisions becoming a robotic medical device platform company by integrating surgical robot technology into endoscopes to enable procedures such as natural orifice surgery.
Lee graduated from the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Seoul National University and completed an integrated master’s and doctoral program in biomedical engineering at graduate school. He founded MedInTech together with fellow researchers during his tenure at the Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI). Just one year after its founding, MedInTech was selected for a KRW 9.5 billion, pan-government, full-cycle medical device R&D project. In addition to the five-year endoscope development project, the company received customized consulting, including patent analysis, feedback from medical professionals, and one-on-one matching with the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
“Many startups become discouraged at the product development stage, and opportunities like this are not easy to come by,” Lee said. “Thanks to the government’s commitment to nurturing startups and localizing core technologies, we were able to receive support at exactly the right points.”
View the original article
https://view.asiae.co.kr/article/2023113007560153303