Dear readers,
We announced the 2nd batch of initial service partners a couple of weeks ago, and at long last, we have reached the final interview for the 1st batch of initial service partners, Klaytn Meets Humanscape.
Humanscape is a blockchain-based patient community seeking to provide solution to incurable diseases by curating personal health data. We visited Humanscape HQ and sat down with Stephen Chang, the CEO of Humanscape.
Klaytn: We’re interested in knowing more about you and and your team, and also what it took for Humanscape to partner with Klaytn.
Chang: I founded Humanscape about five years ago while still in college. I was doing a part-time at a nursing home, from where my interests in medical data and healthcare system developed, which eventually led to founding Humanscape. We had mostly been focusing on operating IT solution for clinics and hospitals, and as our networks and experiences grew over the years, we ventured out to utilizing blockchain technology to develop our DApp.
We have read about Klaytn in media prior to meeting the team in person, and we were very much fond of their inspiring vision and philosophy. Many platform companies out there often seem to be interested in technology only. But Klaytn was looking beyond it. In addition to its advanced technology, Klaytn was dedicated to connecting and integrating blockchain technology with our everyday lives. Doing blockchain not for the technology in and of itself, but for the entire industry and for the ecosystem. This intrigued us.
Klaytn: Can you tell us more about your blockchain service?
Chang: I’d like to start with offline communities. There exist many different offline patient groups, communities, and associations, and in almost all cases, they are made up of serious patients with incurable or rare diseases. Through these communities, patients build up networks, get emotional support and comfort, and sometimes even trade the most buzzed-about medicine or disease-related information. The communities also function as a data hub where numerous invaluable medical data can be generated by patients. These data, however, are currently fragmented and scattered around different patient communities on certain diseases due to lack of a solid platform. And we Humanscape seek to collect, organize, and systematically integrate patient-generated health data in a single platform.
These data can be useful for pharmaceutical companies and clinical institutes to conduct medical research, clinical treatment, or gather target patients, ultimately contributing to helping patients to combat diseases. The medical experts too can gain valuable insights and provide precisely targeted treatment to each patient, while the researchers can conduct efficient incurable disease-related researches and drug development based on the real data shared by patients, thereby ultimately contributing to providing solutions to unconquered diseases.
Klaytn: How would you collect personal data from those offline patient communities you mentioned? Medical-related data would be especially sensitive.
Chang: Yes, the users and consumers these days are protective of their personal data, and probably extra sensitive to their private medical- or health-related data. And they are reluctant to share their data with big institutions or large central organizations, probably more reluctant when it comes to trusting startups like us. With blockchain technology, however, we believed we could tackle this.
Klaytn: Blockchain for personal medical data?
Chang: Yes. Our service allows patient’s personal health profile, such as daily records of illness, associated symptoms, and administered medication data to be entered and managed altogether. And under patients’ permission, this data can further be utilized for researches and clinical studies, ultimately bringing better chances for recovery.
Personal health data have often been monopolized and commercialized by third parties, and it was nearly impossible for patients to know to what extent their health record is collected, who needs it and how it is used. Furthermore, there seems to be an underlying distrust towards doctors and hospitals among patients. Through transparent blockchain technology, however, anyone can look up data transactions, allowing patients to retain control and authority over their own health data. We believe that people’s health data should not be monopolized by a few but must be safely controlled and utilized in transparent manner for the public interest.
And in terms of our token economy, we are going to give incentive with our HUM token to those who provide their personal medical data. And ultimately, they will be able to utilize their tokens towards receiving healthcare service for their own good.
Klaytn: Last but not least, what is Humanscape’s mission?
Chang: Our mission is to free patients from two kinds of isolation we have witnessed: linguistic isolation and social isolation. First, Korean patients have difficulty accessing the latest medical research-related information as it is mostly available in English only. Also, there is this social isolation, from which patients often feel the needs of communicating with other patients in similar shoes or right medical experts but do not know how to reach out. We hope to solve these isolations through our service.
Moreover, our vision is to become ‘a patient influencer’ in Asian region. The top global pharmaceutical companies that have mostly been focusing on large markets in Europe and Northern America are now turning their attention to the growing Asian markets due to market saturation. Their collected Caucasian-based data, however, are difficult to be applied in Asian markets for clinical research, thus calling for Asian data for their research from Japan, Korea, China, and the entire Southeast Asia in the long term. This is where we see the potentials and value of being a data hub for Asian patients for active development of new medicine and treatment, which will ultimately bring better chances of cure.
