KHF2026 highlights digital technology

Daewoong unites 12 digital health companies for alliance...exploring full-lifecycle incorporation

Has showcased the first Digital Pathology Special Pavilion...Pharma and diagnostics companies enter amid global big deals

Expanding beyond scanners and AI into therapeutics and rehabilitation...Real-world adoption·reimbursement remain to be addressed

​The Korea Hospital & Health Tech Fair (KHF 2026) is held from August 19 to 21.

The focus in hospital innovation is shifting from the standalone adoption of individual digital technologies toward system interoperability and clinical adoption.

​This shift was evident throughout the exhibition floor at the Korea Hospital & Health Tech Fair (KHF 2026), which opened on the 19th at COEX in Seoul.

​Daewoong Pharmaceutical united 12 digital health companies under a single alliance. The newly introduced Digital Pathology Special Pavilion showcased an integrated ecosystem connecting slide scanners, artificial intelligence (AI), and pharmaceutical and diagnostic enterprises.

​Hosted by the Korean Hospital Association and organized by Messe Esang and the Future Medical Industry Council, KHF 2026 is held through August 21 under the theme "Hospital Innovation Driven by the Intelligent Hospital-AX and Robotics." This year's exhibition marked its largest scale to date, featuring approximately 400 participating companies.

​The exhibition floor featured five dedicated pavilions: Digital Pathology, Hospital Automation & Robotics, Hospital AI & Security, Digital Healthcare, and Inno Health Lab. While last year's event focused heavily on showcasing the core functions and future potential of medical AI, this year demonstrated a much sharper emphasis on how to integrate and operationalize these technologies within actual hospital workflows.

​Daewoong brought together 12 companies...Transitioning from individual technologies to an ecosystem

​One of the exhibition's biggest highlights was the Daewoong Alliance Pavilion, established jointly by Daewoong Pharmaceutical and domestic digital health companies. Spanning roughly 20 booths, the space brought together 12 companies to showcase technologies across diagnosis, patient monitoring, chronic disease management, digital therapeutics (DTx), and rehabilitation in a unified setting.

​Participating companies included Seers Technology, Sky Labs, Medical AI, AI Arck, Korea TR, Puzzle AI, iKooB, Promedius, EverEx, Orthocare, Hurotics, and Exosystems.

​A diverse range of technologies converged in one space, from wearable ECGs, cuffless blood pressure monitoring, and cardiovascular screening AI to electronic medical record (EMR) voice automation, musculoskeletal digital therapeutics (DTx), and gait rehabilitation robotics. Daewoong Pharmaceutical also hosted 34 expert lectures and hands-on technology demonstrations throughout the event.

​The exhibition emphasized connecting individual solutions rather than simple co-promotion. The overarching strategy is to assemble technologies spanning disease prediction, prevention, diagnosis, treatment, and follow-up care, and combine them with Daewoong Pharmaceutical’s established hospital sales and marketing channels to broaden clinical adoption.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical provided opportunities for individual companies to showcase their technology alongside marketing booths

​A Daewoong Pharmaceutical official stated, "While bringing companies together in this integrated manner has been rare, we participated jointly under the Daewoong Alliance banner," adding, "Ultimately, we must evaluate system interoperability and synergies, which requires strengthening our partnerships and moving forward collaboratively."

​The pavilion was organized into five distinct zones rather than a simple listing of corporate booths ▲Prediction & Prevention ▲Diagnosis ▲Treatment ▲Monitoring & Aftercare ▲Clinical Workflow Optimization.

​From the participating startups' perspective, leveraging a pharmaceutical firm's hospital network allowed them to engage a broader, more diverse pool of visitors compared to exhibiting independently.

​An EverEx representative noted, "When participating in a standalone booth, most visitors are already familiar with the company, but this time, people interested in Daewoong Pharmaceutical are also visiting our space," adding, "There is clear synergy in terms of foot traffic compared to last year."

​The structure, which lets visitors explore diverse technologies at the Alliance Pavilion and then test hardware at individual company booths, also stood out. In addition to the Daewoong Alliance booth, Hurotics set up a standalone booth in the Robotics Pavilion to demonstrate wearable robotics designed for gait rehabilitation.

Daewoong Pharmaceutica’s booth had five sections and introduced companies.

​A Hurotics official remarked, "Because our technology requires hands-on experience, we set up an independent booth alongside the Daewoong Alliance space to expand touchpoints," adding, "Along with direct visitors to our booth, many visitors came after developing an interest at the Daewoong pavilion."

​If joint exhibitions serve as a gateway for broad visibility, standalone booths act as touchpoints to demonstrate specific clinical workflows and target patient populations. For the Daewoong Alliance to evolve from a collection of products into a functional commercial ecosystem, generating real-world hospital adoption cases and establishing cross-company data interoperability will be crucial.

First 'Digital Pathology Pavilion'...Industry transition amid bBig pharma and diagnostics Entry

​The newly established Digital Pathology Special Pavilion at KHF served as another major pillar of the exhibition. The pavilion brought together companies holding technologies in whole-slide scanners, pathology AI, data integration platforms, and companion diagnostics (CDx).

​Historically, pathology rarely had high external visibility because pathologists do not interact directly with patients, despite playing a vital diagnostic role. However, with digital transformation and AI integration linking pathology data to therapy selection, drug discovery, and patient prognosis prediction, the industry's standing is undergoing a dramatic shift.

Chi-Sung Ahn, President of the Korean Digital Pathology Association, stated, "Pathology has historically operated out of the spotlight since pathologists do not meet patients directly, but its importance in patient treatment is expanding significantly," adding, "This special pavilion holds immense meaning as a platform to publicly promote the clinical and industrial value of pathology and digital pathology to both patients and the healthcare sector."

At the event, the digital pathology conference commenced alongside the Digital Pathology Special Pavilion.

​Recent global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) underscore the industry's shift. As diagnostic and pharmaceutical giants directly acquire pathology AI firms, digital pathology has advanced beyond a simple interpretation-assistance tool into a foundational platform connecting companion diagnostics, biomarker discovery, and drug development.

​This global evolution was clearly reflected in the pavilion's booth lineup. The pavilion showcased the full digital pathology continuum, from whole-slide scanners that convert tissue slides into high-resolution digital images to open platforms that integrate external AI algorithms, biomarker quantification, and patient prognostic prediction technologies.

​At the Vieworks and Leica Biosystems booths, they emphasized the foundational digital infrastructure needed before deploying AI. They explained that AI analysis and data utilization become possible only when slide images are reliably acquired and the end-to-end pathology workflow,f rom staining and scanning to diagnostic reading, is seamlessly integrated.

​A Vieworks representative explained, "Because launching digital pathology begins with image acquisition, scanners serve as the cornerstone hardware," adding, "Building a truly integrated digital pathology environment requires subsequently connecting AI analytics and hospital information systems."

KHF2026 featured the first Digital Pathology Special Pavilion, capturing the attention of attendees.

​Leica Biosystems focused on end-to-end workflow connectivity across pathology operations rather than the standalone specifications of individual devices. The company noted that even in hospitals that pioneered digital transformation, manual steps often remain, requiring further operational transitions to achieve complete end-to-end digitization.

​A Leica Biosystems representative stated, "Adopting hardware alone does not mean the entire pathology workflow is digitized. What matters is establishing an environment that connects slide preparation, staining, and scanning, and subsequently enables the seamless utilization of diverse AI analysis software."

​In medical institutions that have already advanced their digital transitions, strategic focus is pivoting from 'how to digitize' to 'how to utilize the acquired data.'

​Roche Diagnostics showcased NAVIFY Digital Pathology, which allows integration with external AI algorithms, and NAVIFY Clinical Hub, which aggregates multimodal clinical data, including pathology, medical imaging, and genomics, to support multidisciplinary care teams. Roche presented an open architecture leveraging accumulated datasets for large tertiary hospitals, alongside subscription-based models to lower initial adoption barriers for smaller medical centers lacking infrastructure.

​A Roche Diagnostics official remakred, "While the focus in the past was on digitizing glass slides, the core challenge now is how to operationalize digitized data within actual clinical workflows," adding, "Rather than treating digital transformation and AI transformation sequentially, we must address reimbursement policies and infrastructure issues in tandem."

AI Digital Healthcare Pavilion was featured at this year’s event again, demonstrating ongoing AI trend in the medical field

​Beyond diagnosis to treatment and rehabilitation...Expanding the scope of healthcare AX

​The exhibition also confirmed that digital transformation is no longer confined to diagnosis and image interpretation. Digital health companies have broadened their technological applications beyond identifying patient conditions into active treatment, rehabilitation, and post-discharge management.

​EverEx showcased DTx solutions supporting therapeutic exercise and rehabilitation for patients with musculoskeletal disorders, while Hurotics unveiled wearable robotics designed to assist gait rehabilitation in mobility-impaired patients. The exhibition also featured wearable devices for continuous vital sign monitoring, inpatient clinical surveillance systems, and rehabilitation assessment tools.

​AITRICS and Coreline Soft, both actively expanding their operational footprint, also participated in the AI Digital Healthcare Pavilion to present their proprietary clinical AI technologies.

​This shows that the competitive benchmark for medical AI and digital health is shifting from standalone accuracy and algorithmic performance to how seamlessly solutions embed into clinical workflows. Connecting disparate datasets scattered across diagnosis, monitoring, treatment, and rehabilitation is essential to enabling true full-lifecycle patient management.

Hurotics set up a standalone booth in the Robotics Pavilion to demonstrate wearable robotics, alongside Daewoong Pharmaceutical (reporter Hwang, byoung woo) 

However, significant hurdles remain before widespread real-world adoption. Industry insiders pointed out disparities in digital infrastructure across hospitals and the lack of a sufficient medical reimbursement tariff system to compensate for the adoption of novel technologies. In digital pathology, high-capacity image storage and infrastructure deployment costs remain major financial burdens for medical institutions.

​Ultimately, KHF 2026 confirmed not merely the emergence of more digital tools, but the concrete integration and practical application of interconnected technologies. The Daewoong Alliance, uniting digital health companies into an integrated ecosystem, and the Digital Pathology Pavilion, which links hardware, AI, and pharma, reflect this broader trend.

​Translating the interconnected frameworks showcased at the exhibition into real-world clinical practice will require solving reimbursement, clinical infrastructure, and real-world evidence validation alongside software interoperability. Whether technologies can transform the end-to-end patient journey beyond isolated tasks will determine the pace of hospital AX.