South Korean internet giant Naver said on March 15 that it has established a joint venture with Daewoong Pharmaceutical to provide medical data analysis services based on its artificial intelligence technology.

Seoul National University Budang Hospital will also be working with the new JV as a data provider.

The announcement came amid the Korean government’s recent move toward deregulating and encouraging businesses that mesh up information and communications technology with health care.

“The JV is in line with our memorandum of understanding, which we signed with Daewoong and Seoul National University Budang Hospital to cooperate with each other.” a Naver spokesperson told The Investor. He added that specific plans have not yet been finalized.

In January, Naver also showed its interest in health care market through the firm’s subsidiary Line in Japan. Line jointly established Line Healthcare with M3, a Japan’s medical platform firm which is a subsidiary of tech giant Sony.

Moreover, Naver also recently invested in three health care related startups -- DoingLab, Atommerce and AmoLab -- through its project called D2 Startup Factory.

Meanwhile, another Korean internet company Kakao also recently decided to invest 10 billion won ($8.9 million) in a JV between Yonsei University Health System and KT, which was set up in 2012 to provide a smart medical management system.

By Song Seung-hyun (ssh@heralcrocp.com)