TOKYO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SMK Corporation (TOKYO: 6798) (https://www.smk.co.jp/) (President, CEO and COO: Yasumitsu Ikeda, hereinafter referred to as SMK) announced that it has entered into a capital and business alliance agreement with Canary Speech, Inc. (https://canaryspeech.com/) (CEO and Co-Founder: Henry O’Connell, hereinafter referred to as Canary Speech) with the aim of further expanding its healthcare business by acquiring the exclusive rights in Japan and Asia to commercialize and distribute the speech-based algorithm for analyzing brain-related diseases and conditions leveraging Canary Speech technology.
Background of capital and business alliance
SMK and Canary Speech have been collaborated with National Cerebral and Cardiovascular Center in developing the algorithm for analyzing MCI (mild cognitive impairment), depressive tendency and fatigue level by using Japanese speech data since March 2022. (*1) SMK plans to proceed PoC with insurance companies, hospitals, and communication service companies, etc. before launching the service in Japan in the spring of 2024.
Dementia and depression are major social issues in Japan where the population is aging but also in other Asian countries, and technology that enables simple early detection of these diseases is expected to have great potential in the future. Through this capital and business alliance, SMK has strengthened its collaborative relationship with Canary Speech and acquired exclusive rights for commercialization and distribution in Japan and other Asian countries. Working together with Canary Speech, SMK plans to localize the analytic algorithm developed in Japan to other Asian countries to expand business as well as for the development of new algorithms by Canary Speech for other diseases and conditions.
Future events
- Implement a variety of PoC using smartphone application or API linkage
- Launch service for algorithm analyzing MCI, depressive tendency, fatigue level in Japanese
- Cultivate partners for local language model development in Asian countries
- Cultivate partners for marketing in Asian countries
- Develop algorithms for analyzing other diseases and conditions
(*1) Press Release announced in March 2022
https://www.smk.co.jp/news/press_release/2022/0308/
About Canary Speech
Headquarters: Utah, U.S. Founded in 2015.
Canary Speech has simplified how people can monitor their health in a fast, non-invasive, and accurate way—through voice. Canary Speech’s patented, revolutionary vocal biomarker technology captures and processes 40 seconds of conversational speech to track the presence and severity of diseases, such as depression and anxiety.
All completed in real-time, Canary Speech provides a vocal score that replaces subjective measurements with objective, actionable care solutions. Additional value can be achieved through longitudinal tracking and measurement.
Canary Speech offers a scalable, non-invasive solution to remotely assess and monitor patients’ health or measure individual wellness based on the analysis of vocal biomarkers using ML and AI.