The American pharmaceutical giant Merck Backs Healthcare Marketplace HD in Southeast Asia

Large technological and pharmaceutical companies are accelerating the implementation of artificial intelligence in the health industry. Last month, AWS and General Catalyst announced their association to accelerate The development and implementation of medical care tools. Ge Healthcare associated with AWS to build Generative the medical use in 2024.

Now, a medical care startup based in Thailand, HDIt has built a market, HDMall, to digitize the fragmented medical industry in Southeast Asia. Startup helps users find medical care suppliers such as hospitals and clinics. It also helps people find specific surgeries and health checks, aggregate services to the lowest costs and provide users with installment options.

The startup has obtained $ 7.8 million in capital funds to improve its market and invest even more in its AI technology. The recent financing marks the first investment of the American pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) in a Startup Healthtech in Asia Pacific. (MSD is the brand that Merck uses to operate outside the United States and Canada, and launched an accelerator called idea studios Last June). Other participants in HD funds included SBI see capital, m venture partners, febe venture and partch partners also participated in the last financing.

“MSD, which produces the HPV vaccines, contacted (US Sheji Ho in an exclusive interview with Techcrunch. “And if you observe the numbers, (we offer) the largest number for online vaccines in markets.”

The five -year -old startup market has more than 30,000 shares storage units (SKU) of more than 2,500 hospitals and clinics and a handful of pharmaceutical partners and 400,000 clients paying in Thailand and Indonesia, generating $ 100 million in annual volume in volume of transactions, scored. Its objective is to reach 5,000 medical care providers and 600,000 patients in 2025.

The last financing, which carries the total financing of HD to $ 18 million, occurs less than a year after a $ 5.6 million round raised.

At the beginning of 2024, HD began to build an AI chatbot, JIB AI, which has been trained in data on anonymized medical care products, transaction data and chat trade data sets using advanced models of large language. After implementing the generative AI technology in its market, almost 60% of customer’s interactions are administered by AI agents, which offer “high quality instant response 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, customers “Ho said.

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

During the next 12 months, the company aims to improve its abilities of AI agents adding orders and reimbursements, assisted chacques, programming, verification of electronic health records and recovery of medical information with the health assistant of Jib AI and through asynchronous virtual care with AI with expert doctors.

The startup also says that it plans to expand its network of external partners in the next two years, focusing on insurance and pharmaceutical companies, as well as employers and educational institutions.

“While US health companies such as Transcarent and recognition began directly with B2B Care Navigation, we see a unique opportunity in Southeast Asia to adopt A ‘B2C2B’ strategy as defined by Andreessen Horowitz“Ho to Techcrunch told Techcrunch.” This approach takes advantage of our existing B2C success to make the transition to B2B, effectively chasing business monetization from the beginning. “

Medical care in Southeast Asia

The majority of the new health companies backed by the company in Southeast Asia, including the doctor of Singapore, Halodoc and Aloodakter in Indonesia, focus mainly on the Telesalud and virtual health services. But Ho says that the approach is not sustainable in Southeast Asia. “Post-pandemic, Telesalud as a business model at sea, has found significant challenges and is quickly losing both consumers and among investors.”

The company is now positioned as a mixture of Amazon One Medical in the United States, health platforms for Chinese outpatients such as JD Health and Alibaba Healthand the health platform for Indian hospitalized patients Pristyn Care.

The health industry is quite different in the emerging markets of Southeast Asia such as Thailand, Indonesia and Vietnam. Without a family doctor system and in Western countries, patients often go directly to hospitals or clinics. This makes it difficult for patients to find adequate medical care services, know where to go and understand how to handle costs, Ho told TechCrunch.

Due to 40% of medical care costs paid by people and low levels of private health insurance coverage, people are more sensitive to prices and feel more pressure when making decisions. This leads to a growing demand for platforms that offer clarity, transparency and ease of comparison between several suppliers, he continued.

The HD platform works more as the “Amazon of Medical Care.” Instead of listing individual GPS or offering medical appointments programming, it allows medical care providers to sell productized services. “Our offers range from health checks, cancer exams and IVF procedures to root conduit treatments, HPV vaccines and surgeries such as thyroid and hemorrhoid surgeries. This approach is aligned with the way in which most people in the region begin their health trips, looking for specific services instead of individual doctors, ”said Ho.

HD offers its services in Thailand and Indonesia, and plans to enter Vietnam and Myanmar with eyes due to their similar health systems.

“His health model is quite similar in some aspects to Continental China. Therefore, it is a high cash payment, around 40%. There is no family doctor system, so people go directly to hospitals or clinics; From then on, government social security coverage comes into play, ”Ho to Techcrunch told Techcrunch. “But those budgets are becoming smaller and smaller. This means that more of the pressure to cover medical care is changing to the private sector, either through private cash or insurance. That is why insurance in the future presents a great opportunity for us. ”

In addition, there is a growing trend towards self -employment in terms of user behavior in these markets. They are getting used more to use tools such as Google Search or Chatgpt to search for issues related to medical care. This aligns well with what HD provides, since it allows people to make their own health decisions, according to HO.