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Health Industry in Korea

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R&D Infrastructure in Biotechnology

Government Investment in Biotechnology (2002~2011)

Unit : KRW 100 million
2002(4,515), 2003(5,356), 2004(7,717), 2005(10,967), 2006(13,019), 2007(15,063), 2008(17,257), 2009(20112), 2010(23,252), 2011(25,808)

Source : Biotech Policy Research Canter 2013

In biotechnology R&D, the Korean government's investment began to increase conspicuously from the 1990s and the investment exceeded 2 trillion won in 2009 and reached 2.58 trillion won in 2011.

New Drug R&D Pipelines of Major Korean Pharmaceutical Companies by Therapeutic Category

Anti-cancer : 45(18.9%), Antidiabetic : 23(9.7%), CNS : 21(8.8%), Antiarthritics : 14(5.9%), Immunomodulator : 14(5.9%), Antiulcer : 14(5.9%), Analgesice : 11(4.6%), Antibiotics : 10(4.2%), Liver Disease : 8(3.4%), Cardiovascular : 8(3.4%), Respiratory system : 6(2.5%), Osteoporosis : 3(1.3%), Hormone drug : 3(1.3%), Erectile Dysfunction : 3(1.3%), Anti-hyperlipidemia : 2(0.8%), Antifungal : 1(0.4%), Others : 49(20.6%)

Source : kDRA Suvey over 37 Leading pharmaceutical companies in 2012

New Drug R&D Pipelines of Major Korean Pharmaceutical Companies by R&D Stage

Research : 75(31.5%), Pre-Clinical : 71(29.8%), PⅠ : 30(12.6%), PⅡ : 38(16.0%), PⅢ : 18(7.6%), Approved : 6(2.5%)

Source : kDRA Suvey over 37 Leading pharmaceutical companies in 2012

  • New Drug R&D Pipelines of major korean pharmaceutical companies have been mainly undertaken in fields of cancers, diabetes and central nervous system(CNS).
  • Most of the pipelines by R&D stage are in research and preclinical stage.

Biotechnology & NSC theses Performance

Publications from Korea in biotechnology by year

1994(420), 1995(933), 1996(1,343), 1997(1,479), 1998(1,820), 1999(2,137), 2000(2,495), 2001(2,651), 2002(2,875), 2003(3,297), 2004(3,894), 2005(4,089), 2006(4,539), 2007(49,09), 2008(5,755), 2009(6,151), 2010(7,060), 2011(7,648), 2012(8,082)

Analysis : Biotech Policy Research Center, 2013

Publication capacity of papers from Korea in biotechnology is rapidly growing every year, and quality of papers is also increased upon publishing in highly prestigious international journals.

Domestic publications in NSC (2001~2012)

Domestic publications in NSC (2001~2012)
Year ‘01 ‘02 ‘03 ‘04 ‘05 ‘06 ‘07 ‘08 ‘09 ‘10 ‘11 ‘12
NSC publications total 14 19 13 18 29 28 26 28 38 47 44 43
BT-related NSC
publications total
11 11 11 10 23 18 19 15 21 28 25 22
BT ratio (%) 78.6 57.9 84.6 55.6 79.3 64.3 73.1 53.5 55.2 59.5 56.8 51.2

papers from Korea, published in world-renowned scientific journals such as Nature, Science and Cell(NSC), have been increasing in number, more than 60% of which refer to biotechnology. During last five years (2008~2012), 222 papers have been published on NSC (18th in the world).

Clinical Trials

Clinical Trials Approved by KFDA

Bigpharma’s Clinical Trials Conducted in Korea (Unit : Cases)

Source : KFDA, 2013

  • The Korea Food & Drug Administration (KFDA) approved 303 cases of multinational clinical trials and 367 cases of domestic clinical trials.
  • Phase I clinical trials conducted in Korea have considerably increased from 19 cases in 2011 to 32 cases in 2012.