Targeting the Chinese market based on the company’s independent technology

Kim Jin-yeong, president of GioCreative, an enterprise for baby’s head shape correction 

On last May 28 during a rebroadcast of the baseball game between Samsung and LG, TV screen caught an interesting scene. The camera was capturing the wife of Martin, LG’s foreign pitcher, and beside her the baby was wearing something like a headgear on its head. This helmet looking like a headgear was in fact a head correction helmet used to correct the baby’s skull. Head correction helmet was first developed by Dr. Clarren, US, in 1979 and officially approved by the US FDA for the correction medical equipment for a baby’s asymmetrical head deformity in the middle of the 1990’s. This was domestically imported early in the 2000’s. Then we had to depend on the US correction helmet, but Power Korea met a successful leading company in localizing the head correction helmet in 2007 after a longtime R&D. 

An enterprise which localized baby’s head correction with excellent technology 

GioCreative (President Kim Jin-yeong) is the nation’s first enterprise for baby’s skull correction. At the beginning of the 2000’s, a baby’s head correction required a correction helmet imported from the US. However, the high cost of over 400 million won at that time limited the number of babies who could use the correction helmet, while the manufacture period taking over ten days often resulted in the helmet not fitting to Korean babies. President Kim tried to allow more babies in need for correction to wear correction helmet by shedding such drawbacks, so after several years of research and efforts, he founded GioCreative in 2007. GioHelmet is the first product launched since foundation and orthopedic medical equipment approved by KFDA. For an infant about 3 to 18 months after birth who has plagiocephaly or brachcephaly, which is natural or acquired asymmetrical or deformed head, respectively, corrective work will be performed by wearing GioHelmet for about 3 to 4 months under the decision of a medical specialist. This is a product made in person by domestic technology in individually customizing Korean babies for their heads. GioCreative, based on experience and knowhow of baby’s head correction, launched ‘GopPillow,’ a baby pillow with head correction and many other functions, also carrying out foreign exports. GioHelmet and GioPillow, both possessed of patents for manufacturing technology, are the products that have passed NAMSA safety test including cytotoxicity, delayed hypersensitivity and skin irritation, while GioPillow is the only baby’s pillow in the nation that prevents a baby from being choked to death even when the baby’s face is buried. Starting this engagement with the mindset of loving babies, President Kim said that the company’s proven excellent technology is nothing but the result of the tremendous amounts of research for years. Currently, GioCreative is being managed with Gio Program for babies in need for head correction through connection with branches and university hospitals around the country. 

Approximates natural and acquired head deformity to standard 

A baby’s head deformity can happen when a fetus stands abnormally on his head in the mother’s abdomen, when twins are pressing each other or when a baby has difficulty passing through a narrow birth canal. Besides, positional head deformity, an acquired factor, can happen when breeding a baby less than 6 months after birth consistently by laying it down only on one side, which the weight of brain presses down on the weak head bone leading to a flat or level back head of the baby. Such cases of head deformity called plagiocephaly, brachycephaly, scaphocephaly, etc. can be treated close to standard by wearing GioHelmet after a doctor’s accurate diagnosis.       

Customized head correction ‘Gio Helmet’ manufactured by accurate personal data  

After a doctor’s diagnostic prescription to need head correction, ‘Geo Helmet’ takes around one week’s time of manufacture period. First, accurate data of a baby’s head is obtained through CT photography or plaster mask, entering into manufacture with measures. Gio Helmet manufactured and completed in accordance with a baby’s head size in consideration of its growth goes through around one week’s adaptation period, while gradually increasing the time for wearing. In principle, this correction helmet must be worn for 23 hours a day. Of late, another company has launched a correction helmet in a hemispheric shape advising the exchange of helmet once in two or three months through remanufacturing. This is at a lower price per unit but the ultimate price is higher because it takes two or three units for the correction period (4-6 months). This point, being hard to be known to by mothers, requires caution. On the other hand, price of Gio Helmet is lower than a correction helmet imported from the US but we cannot deny that it is still a cumbersome price for parents. Unlike other company products, Gio Helmet has been technologically designed in order for most babies to complete correction with a single product. The company is going to commercialize the product within this year so that the process of obtaining data may be collected and made through 3D digital camera. 

Targeting the Chinese market through generalizing domestic market 

Currently, domestic market share of Gio Helmet is 90%. President Kim said, however, that for generalization, it takes lowering the price of head correction helmet through medical insurance. According to him, head correction helmet is covered by insurance in the US but not in Korea, so two thirds of the babies in need for head correction are not able to use head correction helmet. So President Kim is conferring with insurance companies to get them to cover this equipment as early as possible, which is expected to produce the result by the latter half of this year. Mid-and long-term plan of GioCreative is to find a market in China. Currently, he is attempting contact with an aim to establish a hospital and correction center to diagnose head correction in Shanghai and Beijing, China, in around 2016. It will not be long before he participates actively in Chinese market, which is ten times larger than domestic market. In the meantime, President Kim is doing the activity of social sharing periodically carrying out sharing through the agreement of Green Umbrella Child Fund, Holt International Children’s Services and PMC (People for Medical Cooperation), etc. 

Lately, some broadcasting company reported on putting correction helmet on for simple cosmetic purpose but this article was soon corrected as wrong. Head correction helmet is medical equipment so it can never be arbitrarily purchased and used for cosmetic treatment without a doctor’s diagnosis and prescription. Asking not to receive damage from wrong information, President Kim is adding fresh fuel each day to advance toward the global market for correcting babies’ heads. We have more expectations about the future path of GioCreative Co, the nation’s first enterprise for baby’s head correction.