(Health Korea News) Leaving behind the dark year of 2024, the new year of 2025 has dawned. As we welcome this year, we look back on the challenges and opportunities facing the Korean healthcare industry and plant seeds of hope for the future.
As you know, humanity today is witnessing rapid changes in the medical environment. As various diseases, including global pandemics, threaten human health, the development of innovative new drugs is emerging as a more important task than ever. In particular, the development of life sciences serves as an important means of not only treating diseases but also improving quality of life and driving economic growth.
In that sense, the COVID-19 pandemic was a great crisis and opportunity for us in the early 2020s. We overcame that crisis with the persistence and wisdom unique to Koreans and created new opportunities. Thanks to this, the technological level of our country’s healthcare industry has already risen to the ranks of advanced countries.
According to the results of an evaluation conducted by the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, as of 2024, Korea’s healthcare industry technology level has reached 80% of that of the United States, the country with the highest technology. Compared to the United States, the disease sector recorded 80.3% and the industrial sector recorded 79.1%. The technology gap was 2.2 years (disease field) and 2.5 years (industrial field), respectively. This means that our country’s technological level will settle down to the level of the United States in about two and a half years.
By country, Korea is followed by the United States, Europe, and Japan. This means that Korea’s role and responsibility are growing amidst the global health crisis, the advent of an aging society, and the rapid development of innovative technologies.
Responsibilities and roles in the international community are only possible when we leap forward as a pharmaceutical and bio powerhouse. Pharmaceutical biotechnology is a key growth engine for the healthcare industry, but it is also a standard for judging national economic power. Pharmaceutical biotechnology is the heart of the healthcare industry and the nation’s central growth engine.
Coincidentally, this year is the ‘Year of the Blue Snake’. In Korea, the ‘blue snake’ has a symbolic meaning beyond just an animal. If you look at it briefly, it is a symbol of health and wisdom, but if you look at it broadly, it means harmony and change with nature.
The competitiveness of Korean pharmaceutical and bio companies cannot be left out at the center of this change. Biosimilars are made by bio companies such as Celltrion and Samsung Bioepis, innovative new drugs are made by traditional pharmaceutical companies such as Hanmi Pharmaceutical, Yuhan Corporation, Daewoong Pharmaceutical, and Dong-A ST, and CAR-T and gene therapy products are made by bio venture companies such as Curocell. We are racing to develop it.
In the new year, we see new hope in the Korean pharmaceutical and bio industry. Yuhan Corporation’s non-small cell lung cancer treatment ‘Lecraza’, which received product approval in the U.S. and Europe last year, is only the beginning. As of the end of last year, there were more than 100 innovative new drug candidates developed by Korean pharmaceutical and bio companies. The destination for these candidate substances is global markets such as the United States and Europe.
What is more important in the process is cooperation between the public and private sectors through the government’s full support and traction.
New drug development, especially the development and completion of innovative new drugs, is a scientific and technological challenge as well as a fight against time and financial burden. It takes an average of 10 to 15 years from the initial stage of research and development through clinical trials to commercialization. Costs incurred during the process can range from hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. On the other hand, the success rate is extremely disappointing. In other words, it’s like looking for a needle in a sandy beach.
Therefore, for innovative new drugs to appear in the market, there are limits to investment by companies that cannot ignore the pursuit of immediate economic profits. In this context, the role of government is very important.
Government support from the early stages of new drug development should be an important driving force in promoting research and development. The government must support initial research costs that private companies cannot afford and encourage investment in innovative technologies. For example, when a new treatment method or candidate substance is discovered through basic research, research funding and regulatory relief must be provided quickly.
Government support should not be limited to simple financial investment. We must invest strategically and seek ways to cooperate with private companies. For example, the government should be able to drive innovation linked to social needs by investing heavily in important areas such as vaccine development, anticancer drugs, and rare disease treatments. It is also an important task to promote joint research and development with advanced countries overseas through international cooperation so as not to fall behind in the global bio innovation competition.
Innovative new drugs are important assets that create social value beyond simple corporate economic benefits. In addition to providing new treatment opportunities for patients with rare or incurable diseases, it can also improve the quality of life of patients and further contribute to reducing social costs. The government must consider these social values, support new drug development, and ensure that the benefits are evenly distributed. This is what a truly advanced country looks like.
Korea has the world’s smartest digital healthcare industry. It is a country with the potential to lead the future. This year, we will use the upcoming changes as an opportunity to achieve another quantum jump.
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Source: www.hkn24.com
