The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency will build a technical support system to help commercialize antibiotic candidates developed in Korea.
The National Institute of Health under the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency said on the 20th that it has launched a planning study on an "operating model for a distributed infrastructure-linked technical support team to promote new antibiotic development."
The study is being promoted as part of the "project to strengthen research capacity to overcome infectious diseases," funded by donations from the family of the late Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-hee.
The National Institute of Health plans to establish a support system that connects research infrastructure dispersed across research institutes, universities, specialized testing organizations, and industry to solve the problem of antibiotic candidates discovered in Korea failing to advance to commercialization during the preclinical and manufacturing process development stages after candidate discovery.
Because antibiotic development requires a range of expertise after candidate discovery—such as efficacy evaluation, pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic analyses, toxicity evaluation, and manufacturing process development—there have been consistent critiques that it is difficult for small research teams to continue development independently.
Ames Bioscience will lead the study, analyzing domestic and overseas support systems over six months and examining the status of candidate holdings and bottlenecks in the development process to draw up an operating model for the technical support team.
Based on the findings, the National Institute of Health plans to conduct a pilot project from 2027 to 2028 and begin full-scale operation of the technical support team in 2029.