The eyes have it: How Mediwhale is revolutionizing preventive health care
Chyung Eun-ju
The eyes, often called the windows to the soul, have become a powerful tool for unlocking transformative health insights. This shift isn’t just groundbreaking — it challenges how we perceive health care and disease prevention. Leading this revolution is Mediwhale, an innovative company pioneering artificial intelligence (AI) powered retinal scans to predict cardiovascular and kidney health risks with remarkable precision.
This innovation represents the future of health care, prioritizing prevention over costly late-stage treatments. Yet, it challenges a deeply ingrained system resistant to change. The reliance on reactive care — treating illness only after it appears — highlights the urgent need for a shift toward proactive, preventive measures.
CEO Kevin Choi, who co-founded Mediwhale after losing 50 percent of his vision to glaucoma, said, "Our goal is to empower individuals and health care providers with tools that catch diseases early — long before symptoms arise. Prevention, not reaction, should be the cornerstone of modern medicine.”
Mediwhale’s vision began when Choi met Tyler Rim, now chief medical officer, at Severance Hospital in Seoul. Their shared goal of patient-focused AI diagnostics attracted Young Lee, now chief product officer. Lee won the "Medical Big Data Analysis Contest" at Seoul Asan Medical Center. Together, they created the Dr. Noon suite, AI-powered tools that analyze retinal images to predict health risks, from cardiovascular disease to biological aging.
Joel Cho
The flagship product, Dr. Noon CVD, assesses cardiovascular risk using retinal scans with accuracy comparable to coronary artery calcium scores from CT scans. Unlike CT scans, it’s noninvasive, radiation-free, cost-effective and provides real-time results — ideal for primary care settings.
This innovation is timely as health care........
© The Korea Times
