WAYCEN Wins Four CES 2023 Innovation Awards

Medtech artificial intelligence (AI) specialist WAYCEN has captured four CES innovation awards for its technology that analyzes respiratory, gastrointestinal, and bronchial health.

The South Korean firm received two awards each in the Digital Healthcare and Software & Mobile Apps categories through its WAYMED Cough, WAYMED Endo PRO, and WAYMED EBUS solutions. The awards recognize WAYCEN for its technical expertise in real-time image analysis and medical big data analysis technologies. The three honored products have been developed through joint research with medical staff. 
 
WAYMED Cough is the world’s first AI-based self-screening app service that enables the examination of a patient’s respiratory health through an app. This service is the result of joint research by the research team led by Professor Kyeongmin Moon (Department of Pulmonology) at GangNeung Asan Hospital and Doctor Jinhee Jeon (JIMT CEO). Since it analyzes a user’s respiratory health based on AI and helps people in any gender or age to easily manage respiratory health, the product was honored to win awards in two sectors (Digital Health, Software & Mobile apps). Its service is currently uploaded on Google Play Store and App Store.
 
WAYMED Endo, which won the CEO 2022 innovation award, grafts AI technology to an endoscope. The endoscopic image analysis software product was jointly researched through a study with Professor Jie-hyun Kim, Department of Gastroenterology at Gangnam Severance Hospital. While endoscopy is in progress in an endoscopy room, AI detects abnormal areas (bumps or dents) in real time so that the medical staff can check the abnormal areas in the endoscopy room immediately. WAYMED Endo can be used without Internet connection, and is medical image analysis software that can be used by connecting regardless of the brand of the endoscopic equipment.
 
WAYMED EBUS is a solution that analyzes endobronchial ultrasound endoscopy images in real time and judges whether malignant lung cancer metastasis has occurred. This is also the solution that utilizes WAYCEN’s real-time image analysis technology and is the result of joint research with the research team led by Professors Eun Young Kim and Seung Hyeon Yong of Department of Pulmonology at Severance Hospital and was published in the SCIE international scholarly journal, Translational Lung Cancer Research (TLCR) last February. WAYMED EBUS helps sort lymph nodes in need of biopsies in EBUS-TBNA tests, which take a lot of time and effort; using AI technology saves time and cost dramatically. 
 
Based on its unrivaled technology, WAYCEN was selected as the “Country Representative Innovation Company 1000” and Top 4 in the global healthcare award, “Medtech Innovator APAC,” within three years after its founding. Established in 2019, WAYCEN is a company specialized in the next-generation medical AI (artificial intelligence). Based on the AI technology with its root in deep learning, it develops and studies solutions that contribute to full-cycle treatments. WAYCEN possesses approximately 30 radiology-related patents, and is conducting AI-based medical joint research with various leading university hospitals in Korea. 
 
The international CES Innovation Award is given to products with excellent technology, design, and innovativeness among the ones released to the market for the first time of that year. Divided into 28 protect categories, it is an annual award for innovative technical products for users, companies, and institutes. Professional judges in various industries including designers, engineers, and journalists, judge entries based on innovation, engineering, function, aesthetics, and design. Winning an innovation award means the technology is considered that the technology is unique and innovative in certain aspects, and a product with such characteristics is evaluated as being in the front line of the next-generation technology.