South Korea-based startup Kakao Healthcare has signed a business agreement with Denmark-headquartered Novo Nordisk Pharmaceuticals, a leading global diabetes treatment company, to provide smart healthcare services for chronic diseases. 

The two companies have been discussing to provide innovative digital healthcare services by combining Kakao Healthcare's mobile and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies with Novo Nordisk's expertise in treating chronic diseases.

Through this agreement, the two companies plan to link Kakao Healthcare's digital blood sugar management service 'Project Gamma' with 'Malia Smart Sensor', which Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical plans to release in the second half of the year. It plans to introduce a service that dramatically improves patient convenience, such as detecting real-time blood sugar changes, allowing patients to inject insulin and automatically recording history.

Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical's 'Malia Smart Sensor' is attached to a pen-type syringe, and is equipped with high-convenience technology that collects information on drug dosage and injection time of each syringe and transmits the data to software connected through Bluetooth. Patients check blood sugar and data logs in real time through Kakao Healthcare's 'Project Gamma', and use Novo Nordisk's 'Malia Smart Sensor' to inject insulin according to the situation. This series of data is automatically recorded, and in the future, it is planned to support effective treatment by linking with the hospital information system (HIS) of the hospital which the patient attends.