The government and private sector are joining forces to take the lead in the advanced bio industry. Plans have also been announced to nurture a workforce of 110,000 bio professionals and expand the scale of funds investing in the advanced bio industry to 1 trillion won. A plan was revealed to increase the domestic production capacity of biopharmaceuticals to 2.5 times its current level by 2032, aiming for the top position in the world.
On the afternoon of the 23rd, the government held the inauguration ceremony and first meeting of the National Bio Committee chaired by Acting President Choi Sang-mok at the Seoul Bio Hub Global Center in Dongdaemun, Seoul. The National Bio Committee serves as the highest policy-making body across multiple ministries in the bio sector, linking policies promoted by various government ministries and institutions organically and gathering the capabilities of public and private sectors across all fields of bio, including health and medicine, food, resources, energy, and the environment.
Professor Lee Sang-yup from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has been appointed as the vice-chair, and 24 experts have been commissioned as private members. From the government, 12 government members will participate, including Ministers from relevant departments, the Chief Science and Technology Advisor from the Presidential Office (secretary member), and the Deputy Chief of the National Security Office.
Following the inauguration ceremony, the first meeting featured the Ministry of Science and ICT, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare jointly announcing the 'Korea Bio Transformation Strategy.' This is a comprehensive government measure to promote the bio industry coinciding with the rapid growth of the global bio market.
The government announced that it will establish a Korean-style bio-cluster by 2030. This plan aims to promote convergence across various fields, including red, green, white, and blue bio, by linking advanced medical complexes, research and development districts, and industrial complexes nationwide. The initiative includes attracting universities, research institutes, corporations, and hospitals to the cluster to create an ecosystem that extends from research and development to commercialization. The 20 clusters will be utilized collectively for equipment, experts, and startup support programs to create synergies.
Plans have also been announced to nurture a workforce of 110,000 in the bio-health sector by 2027. Strategies for nurturing bio talent will be developed for each field, and personnel who can be utilized directly on-site will be cultivated through specialized graduate schools and training programs on new technologies for current employees. The number of programs to attract overseas scholars and support domestic researchers for overseas training will also increase.
To enhance the competitiveness of the bio industry, the R&D system will also be revamped. Measures will be established to reduce the time and expense of new drug development to half of the current levels by actively utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) technology. To increase the utilization of AI technology, public research institutions in 15 bio fields will fully open their data. By 2035, a plan is in place to establish 10 million datasets on the National Bio Data Platform and introduce bio-specialized supercomputers using more than 3,000 graphics processing units.
An official from the Ministry of Science and ICT noted, "Data is crucial for utilizing AI tools," and added, "If the public sector acts as a dam for collecting data, the private sector will be able to utilize this data."
To enable bio corporations to secure necessary funding, a mega fund will be established, including the 1 trillion won K-Bio Vaccine Fund. The K-Bio Vaccine Fund, which began its establishment in 2023, currently has a scale of 300 billion won, but plans to be increased to 600 billion won this year and expanded to 1 trillion won by 2027. A financial package, including preferential interest rates and expanded loan limits for bio corporations, will also be prepared. Support points such as the K-Bio Desk for assisting domestic bio corporations in advancing overseas and the Boston Cambridge Innovation Center will be increased.
A government official said, "The scale of policy finance will be larger when combining the funds from the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s K-Bio Vaccine Fund with those from the Ministry of SMEs and Startups and the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs."
The plan is to steadily increase the domestic production capacity of contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMO) in biopharmaceuticals to 2.5 times its current level by 2032. The aim is to firmly establish the top position in both CDMO production and sales globally. To achieve this, five public CDMOs will actively support domestic bio corporations that have technical capabilities but lack production facilities, and help diversify business to resolve corporate challenges. The crucial domestic bio materials are currently set to increase from 80 to over 100 key items, and efforts will be made to promote localization step-by-step through the establishment of verification support centers, demand and regulatory agency collaborations aiming for a 15% self-sufficiency rate by 2030.
Lee Chang-yun, the First Deputy Minister of Science and ICT, stated, "While bio R&D has increased by 10% yearly, securing core technologies and the databases for those core technologies is still insufficient," and added, "We will shift the research paradigm to data-driven R&D and improve the R&D investment system to establish bio technology sovereignty."