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| President Yoon Suk Yeol speaks during a meeting with health industry executives, scholars and doctors to discuss ways to create new markets related to biohealth at the former presidential office compound of Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday. Yonhap |
Gov't plans to foster biohealth sector as key strategic industry
By Jun Ji-hye
President Yoon Suk Yeol vowed strong government support for domestic biohealth players in order to foster the industry as the country's core strategic business.
During a meeting he presided over at the former presidential office compound of Cheong Wa Dae, Tuesday, Yoon said that the biohealth field, which includes pharmaceuticals, medical devices, medicines and bioengineering, has enormous growth potential, calling the sector "Korea's next semiconductor."
The meeting was aimed at exploring strategies for expanding exports and opening new markets for the biohealth industry. Participants included health industry executives, scholars and doctors as well as government officials from relevant ministries.
"The global biohealth market is valued at about 2,600 trillion won ($1.97 trillion)," Yoon said. "The field is linked directly to future growth and expected to create a large number of quality jobs."
Yoon said the government will focus its investments on the digital transformation of medical and healthcare services so as to be the first to take an advantageous position in global markets.
He noted that the government will push to create a "Boston Cluster" in Korea so that various venture firms and young entrepreneurs can make inroads in the industry and play a leading role.
The U.S. city of Boston has been regarded as the center of the global biotech industry, as a number of top pharmaceutical and medical device companies as well as world-famous universities such as Harvard and MIT are concentrated there.
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| President Yoon Suk Yeol tries on SK Biopharmaceuticals' wearable devices that are designed to detect signs of seizures in epilepsy patients, Tuesday, before presiding over a meeting with health industry executives, scholars and doctors to discuss ways to create new markets related to biohealth at the former presidential office compound of Cheong Wa Dae. Yonhap |
Stressing the need to improve regulations on data to promote the growth of the biohealth industry, President Yoon urged the National Assembly to pass a pending bill to legislate the tentatively named digital healthcare law.
During the meeting, Minister of Health and Welfare Cho Kyoo-hong announced a set of plans his ministry has set up to implement the President's vision.
The minister said the government will step up its efforts to nurture enterprises utilizing healthcare data for the innovation of medical services.
He also said the K-CURE (Korea-Clinical data Utilization network for Research Excellence) aimed at accumulating big data for cancer research will be built by the end of 2025.
Regarding the pharmaceutical sector, Cho vowed to support the development of new drugs so that at least "two blockbuster drugs" with annual sales of more than 1 trillion won are developed.
By 2026, the government will invest 46.6 billion won into the development of products related to rare, incurable and chronic diseases and their clinical trials.
"We will also try to boost exports of medical devices from $8.6 billion tallied last year to 16 billion, and jump to become the world's No. 5 medical device export country," Cho said. "Toward that end, we will push for investments to support technological advancements in imaging diagnosis and dentistry, and nurture digital health and other promising fields."
In order to cultivate human resources, the government will enhance links between academia and industry.
"A digital-biohealth innovative committee will be set up to push for promote digital transformation, deregulation and enterprise support," Cho said.
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