Seoul City, 50 Patent Applications Filed Last Year by Venture and Startup Companies in Magok

14 Bio and ICT Resident Companies Generate 2.9 Billion KRW in Sales and Create 55 New Jobs
Mterapharma Develops Multi-Target Research for Chronic and Intractable Diseases... 35 Patent Applications Filed

[Asia Economy Reporter Lim Cheol-young] The Seoul Metropolitan Government is seeing continuous success in its ‘Shared Research Space Program,’ which discovers and nurtures venture and startup companies to create a shared research environment within the Magok Industrial Complex.

According to Seoul City on the 15th, the 14 companies residing through the Magok ‘Shared Research Space Program’ achieved the milestone of filing 50 patents last year. Despite the COVID-19 situation, they generated sales of 2.9 billion KRW, attracted 3 billion KRW in investments, and hired 55 new research and development personnel.

M-Thera Pharma is a pharmaceutical venture company specializing in researching and developing multi-target therapeutic agents for chronic and intractable diseases. It achieved an impressive result by filing 35 patents last year. It has been certified as a company-affiliated research institute (KOITA), a venture company (Korea Venture Capital Association), and a technology capability excellence company (Korea Enterprise Data).

Master Meditech is a venture company specializing in new drug discovery, developing antibiotics and anticancer drugs using protein structure determination and medicinal chemistry as core technologies (SBDD). In November last year, it secured 3 billion KRW in investment. Oro is the only domestic venture company specializing in fungal laser manufacturing. Based on various laser source manufacturing technologies such as industrial diode lasers and CO2 lasers, it filed two patents last year. It developed and obtained approval for the first animal skin disease treatment laser in Korea. Currently, approvals from the US FDA and Taiwan FDA are underway.

Arem Therapeutics is a new drug development venture company with strengths in medicinal chemistry. It is developing innovative anticancer drugs and rare disease treatments based on new targets and signaling related to existing anticancer drug resistance and cancer mutations, having filed two patents last year.

Since 2019, Seoul City has been providing research spaces to 14 promising small and medium-sized enterprises in cooperation with resident companies Castwin and CHC Lab, allowing venture and startup companies with innovative ideas and technologies to move into the Magok Industrial Complex without cost burden. Seoul City operates the ‘Shared Research Space Program’ to support promising companies with technological capabilities but lacking financial resources, aiming to create a convergent and symbiotic research ecosystem in the Magok Industrial Complex.

Companies residing in the Magok Industrial Complex’s ‘Shared Research Space Program’ receive free research space for up to five years. They can participate in the ‘CEO Biz Forum,’ a network meeting for Magok resident companies, and engage in networking among researchers. They also receive support such as consulting, joint R&D, and joint overseas expansion utilizing the innovation capabilities of large corporations within the Magok Industrial Complex.

Seoul City supports tailored vouchers to strengthen the R&D capabilities and global competitiveness of Magok venture and startup companies. Starting this March, it plans to recruit and select 10 companies with a total project budget of 200 million KRW. Eligible companies are small and medium-sized enterprises residing in the Magok Industrial Complex. Companies selected for the tailored voucher support project receive assistance for prototypes, R&D planning and consulting, testing and certification, patent applications, marketing and export, and market research.

Kim Sang-han, Head of the Regional Development Headquarters of Seoul City, said, “The brilliant ideas of venture and startup companies residing in the research spaces provided by companies in the Magok Industrial Complex have converged, achieving significant results from job creation to sales growth in just over a year since moving in. We will develop the Magok Industrial Complex into an R&D convergence innovation hub where large and small companies coexist and grow together.”

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