Hana Bank forms partnership to help patients with rare diseases

A poster promotes Hana Bank’s project to collect the health information of patients with rare diseases to help find treatments. [HANA BANK]

Hana Bank partnered with digital health care startup Humanscape and the Korean Organization for Rare Diseases to establish a system that collects and manages the health information of patients with rare diseases to help develop treatment drugs, the bank announced Friday.

The health data collected from the patients will include their gene analysis and diagnosis. The collected information will be used for future research to develop domestic drugs for patients with rare diseases, Hana Bank said.

It said the patients of such rare diseases have difficulty receiving treatment, as related drugs are either not developed yet or are not imported into the country. Even if the drugs are available in Korea, they are very costly, it added.

BY JIN MIN-JI [jin.minji@joongang.co.kr]