Electronic medicine platform company Ybrain said on Monday it signed a business agreement to participate in the Ministry of Science and ICT's large-scale R&D programme, the K-Moonshot project, as the sole industry partner in the brain-computer interface (BCI) field.

In the project, Ybrain will use non-invasive brain stimulation technology and clinical data to serve as a key pillar in establishing technical standards and building an ecosystem to solve challenges in brain science.

According to the company, Ybrain solutions have been introduced at 767 clinics and hospitals, about 35 percent of psychiatry and mental health medicine departments in South Korea. Its three Mind platform product lines have logged more than 1.4 million cumulative prescriptions and measurement results.

Ybrain plans to speed up development of next-generation BCI technology through the K-Moonshot project to read and stimulate brain signals to overcome physical and cognitive limits. It plans to expand commercialisation into invasive BCI, aiming to compete with Elon Musk's Neuralink, based on its experience in technology commercialisation including at-home clinical trials.

Lee Ki-won (이기원), Ybrain's chief executive, said, "In step with the government's commitment to fostering the brain industry, we will create commercial technical standards that lead the global brain interface market."