2024-04-27 07:19:02
‘EverX’ pioneers the musculoskeletal digital treatment device market
The problem of not being able to sustain important rehabilitation exercises
Started a business while practicing as an orthopedic surgeon
“Reduce the time and cost of traveling to and from the hospital, and innovate monitoring to ensure proper operation.”
If there is a drug that builds muscle, rehabilitation exercises may not be necessary. But there is no such drug yet. There are attempts to make it, but there is no news of success. Rehabilitation exercises that build muscles and normalize physical functions are an important treatment that cannot be replaced.
EverX, located in Seocho-gu, Seoul, manufactures digital therapy devices that help patients properly perform rehabilitation exercises on their own.
It is a startup created by an orthopedic surgeon. CEO Yoon Chan (40), who graduated from Seoul National University School of Medicine, worked as a doctor at Bumin Hospital in Gangseo-gu, Seoul, and is now focusing solely on development to complete a digital treatment device.
CEO Yoon, who met at the EverX office on the 19th, said, “Rehabilitation exercises are so important after surgery that they determine the effect of the surgery. It is often the only means of managing chronic pain whose cause is unknown. Nevertheless, there are too many cases where rehabilitation exercises are not implemented properly due to the time required for rehabilitation exercises and economic costs. “The need was obvious, but I couldn’t see a solution, so I started a business.”
●Importance of rehabilitation exercise
CEO Yoon added detailed explanations to help patients properly understand the importance of rehabilitation exercises. As an example, a patient with frozen shoulder (adhesive capsulitis) who experiences pain and limitation of movement in the shoulder joint was used. CEO Yoon said, “Medical treatment for patients with frozen shoulder does not directly cure the disease with medication. “It’s just a process of helping the patient feel comfortable exercising.” The idea is that the patient must exercise properly while feeling less pain due to medication for the bones, tendons, and muscles to be properly established and their functions to normalize.
Even if you have surgery, rehabilitation exercises are necessary after surgery. CEO Yoon said, “Surgery is half the process, and rehabilitation exercises are the other half. Rehabilitation exercises are required for wounds around the muscles caused by surgery to heal properly and function to normalize. “If you only undergo surgery and do not do rehabilitation exercises, it is difficult to achieve a complete cure,” he said.
EverX helps patients exercise properly on their own through a digital app. The app monitors progress and improvement during the rehabilitation process through movement division. By building a medically effective exercise program (library), we are proving that it is also effective as a digital therapy device.
●Building digital treatments based on medical evidence
EverX gathered experts in orthopedics, rehabilitation medicine, and psychiatry to create ‘MORA,’ a rehabilitation exercise treatment brand specializing in the musculoskeletal system based on medical evidence and abundant clinical experience. Mora has the advantage of enabling objective musculoskeletal evaluation with a library of over 3,000 rehabilitation exercises and advanced artificial intelligence (AI) pose estimation technology. By precisely analyzing the patient’s movements from various angles using a mobile phone camera, medical staff can monitor the patient and track the progress of symptoms.
EverX is developing and providing four representative solutions specialized for diseases and functions based on Mora’s core assets.
MORA Ex is a non-face-to-face rehabilitation exercise solution containing over 3,000 rehabilitation exercise courses. When medical staff assigns customized rehabilitation exercises to patients via the web, patients can easily perform rehabilitation exercises without time or space constraints through the Mora app. Medical staff can monitor based on the rehabilitation exercise data performed by the patient and track performance and treatment progress. Currently, about 200 medical staff are using it at over 60 medical institutions, including Seoul National University Hospital and Hanyang University Guri Hospital, as well as major general hospitals. Significant results are being achieved with a patient performance rate (treatment compliance) of approximately 70% and a pain improvement rate of 81%.
In the United States, it was launched under the brand name ‘EverEx Rehab’ and was registered as a class 2 medical device by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the purpose of rehabilitation exercise and remote monitoring in July of last year. Pilot use and introduction are being carried out at physical therapy centers in New Jersey, USA.
MORA Cure is a new type of multidisciplinary digital therapy device that combines rehabilitation exercise therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy. Chronic pain such as patellofemoral pain syndrome and chronic back pain require cognitive behavioral therapy to help with psychological treatment, but the app was created considering the fact that patients who visit orthopedics have difficulty returning to psychiatry for psychological treatment. EverX is conducting clinical trials for Mora Cure. Exploratory clinical trials for patellofemoral pain syndrome have now been completed and are scheduled to begin confirmatory clinical trials after receiving medical device clinical trial approval (IDE) last month. Confirmatory clinical trials for the treatment of chronic back pain are also being prepared.
MORA Vu is a solution specialized for musculoskeletal motion analysis based on EverX’s self-developed AI-based posture estimation model. The precision of musculoskeletal movement analysis was increased by intensively learning 500,000 musculoskeletal movement data. Compared to existing analog measurement machines, Mora View requires almost no examination space. In February of this year, it became the first domestic musculoskeletal software medical device to receive musculoskeletal analysis software grade 2 medical device certification from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety.
MORA Care is a service provided to company members and is an Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that allows employees to manage their musculoskeletal health with EverX rehabilitation experts. It provides rehabilitation exercises suitable for musculoskeletal symptoms that may occur or worsen in the work environment, such as straight neck and back pain.
●Bring together medical and IT experts to commercialize
CEO Yoon graduated from the Department of Life Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the College of Medicine at Seoul National University. While studying medicine and treating patients, he lamented the environment in which rehabilitation exercises were not conducted consistently. He founded EverX in 2019.
EverX’s board of directors includes medical experts and information technology (IT) experts, including AI. Byung-Hoon Kim, head of AI development, is a professor in the Department of Biomedical Systems and Information at Yonsei University College of Medicine. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Yonsei University College of Medicine and his doctorate in bio and brain engineering from KAIST. Choi Chi-hyeon, head of cognitive behavioral therapy development, received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Seoul National University College of Medicine and served as a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Seoul National University Boramae Hospital. EverX currently has 46 employees, including 5 in the AI Division, 4 in the Medical Division, and 17 in the Product Development Division, working hard to complete the development of digital therapeutics.
EverX is targeting the global market. CEO Yoon said, “The U.S. musculoskeletal disease market is worth $600 billion, and the number of global musculoskeletal disease patients is 1.8 billion.” In every country, patients want to reduce the time and cost of multiple hospital visits, and doctors want to be able to monitor the results of rehabilitation exercises outside of the hospital. It is aimed at this demand.
CEO Yoon said about starting a business with qualifications as a doctor, “Unless you are a doctor who has experienced the process of treating diseases for many years, it is difficult to include detailed know-how in the program about what processes should be included in digital therapeutics and how to increase the treatment effect.” “Starting a business is certainly not an easy path, but I hope that more doctors will start businesses and that there will be more tools that can be cheaper, more convenient, and increase the effectiveness of treatment,” he said.
Reporter Heo Jin-seok jameshur@donga.com
2024-04-27 07:19:02