Us Pharma Giant Merck Backs Healthcare Marketplace HD in Southeast Asia

Large technological and pharmaceutical companies accelerate the implementation of artificial intelligence in the health care industry. Last month, AWS and General Catalyst announced their partnership to accelerate the development and deployment of health care AI tools. Ge Healthcare has teamed up with AWS to build AI Generative for medical use in 2024.

Now, a health care startup based in Thailand, Hdhas built a market, HDMall, to digitize the fragmented medical industry in Southeast Asia. The startup helps users to find health care providers such as hospitals and clinics. It also helps people find specific surgeries and health checks, accredges services to reduce costs and offer users payment payment options.

The startup obtained $ 7.8 million in equity funding to improve its market and invest more in its AI technology. The recent funding marks the first investment of the American pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) in a Healthtech startup in Asia-Pacific. (MSD is the brand that Merck uses to operate outside the United States and Canada, and it Launched an accelerator called IDEA Studios Last June.) The other participants in HD financing included SBI Ven Capital, M Venture Partners, FEBE VENTURE and PARTNERS PARTNERS also participated in the last funding.

“MSD, which produces HPV vaccines,” contacted [us] Because we already sold a lot of online HPV vaccines that were administered in hospitals and clinics we are working with, “said the co-founder and CEO of HD Sheji Ho in an exclusive interview with Techcrunch. “And if you look at the figures, we [offer] The greatest number for online vaccines on the markets. »»

The five -year startup market has more than 30,000 storage units (SKUS) of more than 2,500 hospitals and clinics and a handful of pharmaceutical partners and 400,000 paid customers in Thailand and Indonesia, generating $ 100 million Volume of annual raw transactions, ho ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho, ho, ho ho, ho ho, ho ho noted. It aims to reach 5,000 health care providers and 600,000 patients in 2025.

The last funding, which covers total HD funding at $ 18 million, comes less than a year After having collected a turn of $ 5.6 million.

At the beginning of 2024, HD began to build an AI chatbot, an IA JIB, which was trained on anonymized health products, transaction data and chat trade data sets using advanced models of great language. After the implementation of the technology of generators in its market, almost 60% of customer interactions are managed by AI agents, who offer “an instantaneous 24 and 7 days a week” response “, said Ho.

JIB AI helps health professionals such as nurses, doctors and surgeons to focus on providing quality patient care by managing most of the initial sorting and navigation tasks.

Over the next 12 months, the company aims to improve its AI agent capacities by adding the order and reimbursement of reimbursement, assisted funds, planning, verification of electronic health files and recovery of information Medical with the AI ​​health assistant of JIB and via asynchronous virtual care for propulsion AI and via AI Asynchrones Care Asynchronous Care with expert doctors.

The startup also indicates that it plans to extend its network of external partners over the next two years, focusing on insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as employers and educational establishments.

“While American health care companies such as transcarent and hugs started directly with the navigation of B2B care, we see a unique opportunity in Southeast Asia to adopt A “B2C2B strategy” as defined by Andreessen Horowitz“Said Ho to Techcrunch. “This approach takes advantage of our existing B2C success to go to B2B, effectively continuing the monetization of businesses from the start.”

Health care in Southeast Asia

Most health care startups supported by an adventure in Southeast Asia, including Doctor of Singapore anywhereHalodoc and Alodokter in Indonesia, focuses mainly on remote charts and virtual health. But Ho says that the approach is not durable in Southeast Asia. “Post-Pandemic, telehealth as a business model at sea has encountered significant challenges and quickly loses the favor of consumers and investors.”

The company is now positioned as a mixture of Amazon One Medical In the United States, the Chinese ambulatory Chinese health platforms as Health JD And Alibaba Healthand the Indian health care platform for hospitalized patients PRETTYN CARE.

The health care industry is very different in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Without a system of family physicians as in Western countries, patients often go directly to hospitals or clinics. It makes it difficult for patients to find the right health services, know where to go and understand how to manage costs, Techcrunch told.

Due to 40% of health costs paid by individuals and low levels of private health insurance coverage, people are more sensitive to prices and feel more pressure when making decisions. This leads to an increasing demand for platforms which offer clarity, transparency and ease of comparison between the various providers, continued.

The HD platform works more as “Amazon of Healthcare”. Instead of listing individual general practitioners or providing appointments from the doctor, it allows health care providers to sell productive services. “Our offers range from health checks, cancer screening and IVF procedures for rooted channel treatments, vaccinations with HPV and surgeries such as thyroid and hemorrhoid surgeries. This approach combines with the way most people in the region are starting their health care travel – looking for specific services rather than individual doctors, “said HO.

HD provides its services in Thailand and Indonesia, and it plans to enter Vietnam and the eye of Myanmar due to their similar health care systems.

“Their health model is quite similar in some respects to continental China. It is therefore a high cash payment, around 40%. There is no family doctor system, so people go directly to hospitals or clinics; Subsequently, government coverage of Social Security comes into play, ”said Ho to Techcrunch. “But these budgets become smaller and smaller. This means that more pressure to cover health care turns to the private sector, whether by species or private insurance. This is why insurance in the future presents a great opportunity for us. »»

In addition, there is an upward trend towards empowerment in terms of user behavior on these markets. They get used to using tools such as Google Search or Chatgpt to search for health care subjects. This alignments well with what HD provides, because it allows individuals to make their own choices of health care, according to HO.