The Ripple Effect - Corina Huang

Corina Huang, a winning laureate at the Cartier Women’s Initiative 2021, paves the way for innovative healthcare technology that could possibly save millions of lives

- Katherine Arteche

Corina Huang is on a mission — to make sure no one chokes on a pill again, or better put, to have you take your daily vitamins as you would a piece of candy. Boncha Boncha does just that, creating a high-absorption chewable candy pill, or a “candyceutical” (a coined term by Huang to describe her candy-supplement technology) that’s formulated to be an alternative to the conventional way of swallowing tablets and pills for dysphagic patients, a medical condition for people with swallowing difficulties. It addresses an issue that affects many people in the world, prevalent in 300 million people over the age of 65.

This phenomenon typically results in patients skipping their medication or supplements, depriving themselves of the required nutrients they seek. Huang first observed this when her own grandmother struggled with consuming pills after suffering from a stroke. “I had to open the capsules or break the tablet into two pieces, which affected efficacy and slowed her recovery,” she says.