On the 27th, the 2nd Seoul Bio Innovation Forum hosted by the Seoul Business Agency was held at the SETEC Convention Center in Gangnam District, Seoul. On this day, six university hospitals in Seoul, including Korea University Medical Center, Seoul National University Hospital, Asan Medical Center, Samsung Medical Center, Yonsei University Health System, and Ewha Womans University Medical Center, shared the status of their respective corporate collaboration and research platforms.
Hospitals attending the forum agreed that they will not stop at patient care but will push "open innovation" by opening up their vast clinical data, research infrastructure, and specialized research capabilities to domestic and overseas corporations.
First, Korea University Medical Center's research platform and open innovation system were introduced. Kwon Hyun-kyung, Head of Team of the Technology Business Team at Korea University Medical Center, said it operates 25 research platforms centered on three hospitals—Anam, Guro, and Ansan—and highlighted as strengths its experience building big data from the national cancer genome analysis platform (K-Master) and a cloud-based hospital information system (HIS). The Vaccine Innovation Center under the medical center is also conducting mRNA Vaccine research in cooperation with the U.S. global pharmaceutical company Moderna.
Kwon, Head of Team, said, "University laboratories supply innovative technologies, hospitals conduct technology verification and testing, partner institutions support technology advancement and expansion, and industry accelerates commercialization based on this," and added, "We support practical commercialization links with corporations through domestic and overseas cooperation networks."
Next, Kim Seong-hun, a professor in the Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at Asan Medical Center, introduced the hospital-centered research platform and the structure for corporate participation at Asan Medical Center.
Asan Medical Center separates demand into internal customers (professor-founded startups, researcher-founded startups) and external customers (project-participating corporations, platform-using corporations), and operates end-to-end open platforms such as a research platform, a regulatory approval platform, and a validation platform.
The research platform provides hospital data to corporations and researchers, and the regulatory approval platform supports medical device and bio corporations in receiving consulting on approvals, insurance, and regulations. The validation platform is designed to test prototypes in a hospital environment and obtain feedback from medical staff. Kim said, "Over the past six years, we have operated more than 70 cases of corporate support and produced research outcomes."
Lee Hyeong-cheol, deputy head of the Healthcare AI Research Institute at Seoul National University Hospital, emphasized the data and AI capabilities the hospital holds. Seoul National University Hospital is disclosing all data—clinical information on 3.5 million people, 38 million clinical notes, and more—through the Korea Health Data Platform (KHDP). It also includes Vital DB, the world's largest waveform dataset, and HAY-UniC data that collect materials on 1 million people from 25 hospitals.
Because of security issues in the medical field, an on-premise environment that installs and operates directly on servers in each computer room is essential, and Seoul National University Hospital also released the HARI Q3 model, a large language model (LLM) specialized for medicine. Lee said, "We will soon unveil a Korean medical LLM co-developed with Naver."
Jang Won-seok, a professor in the Department of Medical Device Industry at Yonsei University Health System, said, "The domestic medical device industry is facing a double challenge of 'low utilization at tertiary general hospitals' and 'tougher overseas certification regulations,'" and pointed out, "For the domestic medical device industry to develop, these problems must be resolved."
Professor Jang also introduced Yonsei University Health System's Yonsei Global Innovation Medical Technology Validation Support Center. The center provides cash support of 40 million to 50 million won, clinical matching, and regulatory approval and clinical consulting to corporations aiming to enter domestic and overseas markets. Through memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with overseas clinical institutions, it supports overseas clinical trials by domestic corporations, and by operating a usability research center certified under KOLAS, it helps corporations more easily overcome international regulations.
Lee Hujeong, deputy head of research at Ewha Womans University Medical Center, presented an industry-academia cooperation vision that leverages the geographic advantage of being adjacent to the Magok Industrial Complex. Lee said, "Ewha Medical Center is conducting research focused on diseases stemming from differences between women and men," and introduced, "As a corporate support program, we operate an 'efficacy evaluation center.'" It also provides specialized clinical advice from target discovery to preclinical and clinical stages in the fields of urologic diseases and women's diseases. Through the Ewha Meditech Forum and the "R&S (Research & Startup)" program, it is also supporting active networking.
As the final presenter, Yoon Tae-min, a manager at the Technology Commercialization Office of Samsung Medical Center, shared open innovation cases at Samsung Medical Center.
Yoon said, "Samsung Medical Center is conducting research in three key areas: precision medicine, regenerative medicine, and convergence medicine (digital/AI)," and added, "Recently, research demand has been moving strongly toward software medical devices such as digital therapeutics and electroceuticals." Samsung Medical Center has successful R&D cooperation cases with MEDIPOST's Cartistem, Lunit, Curocell, and AimedBio.
Yoon said, "For corporations to use hospital infrastructure, linkage with the principal investigator (PI) is essential," and advised, "It is important to clearly present the target disease and cooperation goals." Yoon also emphasized the importance of GMP facilities linked to clinical trials and the use of data. In particular, to sell products to hospitals, Yoon advised that it is important to secure a product code that can be linked to the "procedure fee" rather than relying on simple marketability.
Park Bo-kyung, head of the Business Division at the Seoul Business Agency, said, "This forum was a meaningful occasion that showed large hospitals have thrown open the doors to cooperation as direct partners in corporate growth for the growth of the domestic bio industry."