News

Medical Data Vision Co., Ltd. (Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; CEO: Hiroyuki Iwasaki; hereinafter “MDV”), which holds the largest domestic medical database, is pleased to announce that it has reached a basic agreement to form a capital and business partnership with AMI Inc. (Kagoshima; CEO: Shinpei Ogawa; hereinafter “AMI”), which develops and provides a smart ambulatory stethoscope using artificial intelligence (AI) technology (*1), to build a more reliable event-level database to support the development of new treatments for heart disease.

The diagnosis of valvular disease of the heart, such as aortic stenosis, is mainly made by echocardiography (echocardiography). Considered as essential, the test is nevertheless requiring in resource and manpower if to apply to all patients suspected to develop cardiac syndromes, so the cost to patient could be an issue. The blood test to measure BNP and NT-pro BNP, a type of hormone secreted by the heart, is an alternative diagnostic method for heart failure, but it requires blood to be drawn each time, and the patient must wait approximately two hours before receiving the test results. MDV believes that the AMI Device is the key to solving these problems.

Through this capital and business partnership, the two companies will promote the use of AMI’s super ambulatory stethoscope in hospitals across the country for the early diagnosis and treatment of aortic stenosis and heart failure, for which MDV has obtained permission for secondary use of their data. They will also combine MDV’s database with clinical data on heart disease collected by the super stethoscope to create a new database.

Furthermore, in a mid- to long-term perspective, there is a plan to make the super stethoscope available to the general public so that it can be actively used by users of MDV’s PHR (Personal Health Record) system, “Karteco” (*2), to collect data for personal examinations.

Based on its open alliance strategy, MDV formed a business alliance with DeNA Co., Ltd. in May last year and built the largest health insurer database in Japan by combining both companies’ respective databases. This will add on top of the health insurance for societies, the national health insurance data, and data from the medical care system for the elderly to propel the insurer database to the largest scale in Japan. The actual number of patients in the databases available for use was 43.83 million for hospital data and 19.30 million for insurer data as of the end of May. Meanwhile, Karteco launched its service in June 2015 and currently has over 50,000 users nationwide.

*1 Telemedicine-compatible stethoscope device with heart disease diagnosis assisting function

*2 Karteco is a web service that allows patients and people undergoing medical examinations to store their own medical information (names of injuries and diseases, results of blood tests, etc., medications used during medical examinations, prescribed medications, procedures and surgeries, etc.), laboratory images, and medical examination information, and view them at any time and from anywhere via their smartphones or other devices.

PHR system “Karteco”

Vision of the value created through this capital and business alliance