Korea MSD said on the 27th that it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI) to strengthen cooperation on open innovation.
The two sides held a signing ceremony that day at the Oakwood Premier Coex Center in Gangnam-gu, Seoul, and agreed to gradually build a cooperation platform to expand exchanges between domestic corporations and MSD and support global partnerships. Through this, they plan to strengthen the foundation for the global expansion of the domestic health care industry.
Under the agreement, Korea MSD set up an "MSD BD&L (Business Development & Licensing) Office" at the Health Industry Startup Innovation Center operated by KHIDI. The space will serve as a collaboration hub to discuss discovering innovative medicines and the potential for joint development between domestic corporations and MSD.
The two sides will also co-host "KHIDI–MSD Partnering Day" to help domestic corporations gain experience collaborating with global pharmaceutical companies and seek opportunities to expand overseas.
Korea MSD has supported the global expansion of domestic corporations through the Bio Korea Open Innovation session, the East-West Biopharma Summit Seoul, and joint workshops with the Korea Drug Development Fund. It also invested 78 billion won, about 14% of last year's sales, in research and development, and its cumulative investment over the past five years amounts to 370.4 billion won.
Jeong Yeong-hun, executive director of planning at KHIDI, said, "With this agreement, we expect to see expanded cooperation between domestic biotech companies and global pharmaceutical firms," and added, "Through the open innovation platform, we will strengthen connected support from technology cooperation to commercialization."
Kim Albert, head of Korea MSD, said, "This agreement is an opportunity to advance our open innovation strategy by one step," and noted, "Through the BD&L Office, domestic corporations will be able to directly experience MSD's global research and development capabilities and cooperation models."