Chungnam to Establish 'Microbiome Industry' Hub in Cheonan and Asan

[Asia Economy (Naepo) Reporter Jeong Il-woong] Chungnam Province is promoting the establishment of a microbiome industry hub in Cheonan and Asan. Last year, the province selected this industry as a core sector in the ‘Customized Healing Industry’ field, and this year it has been designated as a key future strategic industry task.

On the 28th, the province announced that it has secured a 16,528㎡ site within the Cheonan-Asan KTX Station Research and Development (R&D) Complex in collaboration with Asan City to build the microbiome hub.

The area is a geographical and transportation hub, easily accessible from anywhere nationwide, and industrially competitive, ranking among the top nationwide in production value and company distribution in pharmaceuticals, food, and cosmetics, according to the province.

Leveraging these geographical and industrial strengths, the province plans to promote a preliminary feasibility study project worth 350 billion KRW this year under the theme of the ‘Human Microbiome Commercialization Product Technology Development Project.’

The project broadly consists of ‘Establishing a Microbiome Commercialization Center’ and ‘Microbiome Research and Development (R&D).’ Facilities and equipment within the center will be built to support entry into the global leading market, and the R&D will be planned in four fields: pharmaceuticals, health functional foods, functional cosmetics, and precision medical diagnostics.

The province plans to apply for the preliminary feasibility study through the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy to the Ministry of Science and ICT next month.

Meanwhile, microbiome is a compound word of microbiota, the microbial community coexisting with humans, and genome. The new industry applying this is currently rapidly growing, centered in the United States.

The number of symbiotic microbes is ten times the number of human cells and has 100 times more genes than human genes, earning it the nickname ‘Second genome.’

Based on this, the microbiome shows close correlations with various human diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, infectious diseases, and dementia. It has been selected as one of the World Economic Forum’s top 10 promising future technologies, rapidly emerging as a new paradigm for overcoming diseases, with countries worldwide fiercely competing to secure a leading position.

In this regard, the province promoted the ‘Probiotics Industry Platform Establishment Project’ in 2018 to lay the foundation for the microbiome ecosystem. As a result, it supported 49 small and medium-sized enterprises, achieving an 11.3% increase in sales.

A provincial official said, “If the project passes the preliminary feasibility study, it will become possible to establish a domestic human microbiome hub in Chungnam. We plan to focus on building a cluster by continuously promoting the creation of a bio-industrial complex centered on the center and designating a microbiome regulatory free zone.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.