Mediwhale co-founder and CEO Kevin Choi discovered that he had lost vision in nearly half of one of his eyes from glaucoma when he was 24, which is rare in young people.
“I was devastated and could not believe this was happening to me,” Choi told TechCrunch. “There were no [initial] symptoms for me to recognize. If this had been diagnosed and treated early, I could have saved my vision.”
This ordeal motivated Choi to start a company to help people detect health risks early, even before symptoms appear. Following his treatment, Choi and his doctor Tyler Rim, a vitreoretinal surgeon, founded Mediwhale in 2016. The Seoul-headquartered healthcare startup has built an AI-powered non-invasive retina scan to diagnose cardiac and kidney disorders and more diseases through its patients’ retinal photographs.
Mediwhale’s first product is Reti-CVD, an AI-powered retinal diagnostic solution that assesses the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in patients. Choi told TechCrunch that early detection and assessment of CVD risks would let users start statin therapy early for CVD intermediate and high-risk groups. Mediwhale’s tech offers results in under a minute, according to Choi.