AI Global Competitiveness Secured... New Drug Development Platform Launching in Second Half

Wooyeon Kim, Head of AI Drug Development Support Center, Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association

Kim Woo-yeon, Head of the AI Drug Development Support Center at the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association.

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-ju] "Our country is advancing beyond being an IT powerhouse to becoming an artificial intelligence (AI) powerhouse. We can fully secure global competitiveness in the field of new drug development using AI."

New drug development has a significant social impact and strong public interest. However, the enormous time and cost required for new drug research and development (R&D) act as factors causing domestic companies to hesitate in developing new drugs. To overcome these entry barriers, AI-utilized new drug development, which maximizes R&D efficiency, has rapidly emerged as a future core strategic field. The industry estimates that AI technology will be applied throughout all stages of new drug development, shortening the drug development cycle from 15 years to 7 years. This is because AI can design candidate substances, plan preclinical and clinical trials based on biological information data such as genomics, and identify optimal patient groups, thereby minimizing uncertainty, time, and cost.

Kim Woo-yeon, head of the AI New Drug Development Support Center at the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association (professor of chemistry at KAIST, photo), believes the core of AI new drug development is ‘collaboration’ and ‘convergence.’ At an online press briefing on the 30th, Kim emphasized, "The pharmaceutical and bio industry must seize this opportunity to leap into a world-class industry like semiconductors, shipbuilding, steel, and entertainment," adding, "To accelerate this, mutual understanding and cooperation between the fields of AI technology and new drug development technology are essential."

The center’s future activities are also aligned with promoting collaborative business. The center plans to launch an ‘AI platform for new drug development researchers’ in the second half of this year. This platform aims to enable medicinal chemists without IT expertise to easily utilize it online for discovering active substances and lead compounds. Alongside this, the center will also focus on nurturing specialized personnel. By strengthening the ‘convergent AI new drug development expert education’ project, it will open customized learning courses and field training programs for new drug development researchers to address the shortage of manpower in the field. The center also plans to enhance the online education platform ‘LAIDD’ that it has established.

Kim explained, "AI new drug development is a convergence of various academic disciplines and technologies. There are experts from diverse backgrounds, and there are various roles required by new drug development companies," adding, "I believe the approach should be from the perspective of nurturing convergent experts." He said, "Considering the remarkable pace of AI technology development so far, I look forward to how quickly this field will advance in the future," and added, "I feel a heavy responsibility in taking on the position of center director at this important time, and I will strive for the successful development of domestic AI new drug development."

Appointed on the 2nd of this month, Kim holds a Ph.D. in physical chemistry from POSTECH and has worked as a researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. In 2020, he received the ‘Young Physical Chemist Award’ from the Korean Chemical Society, given to outstanding young researchers under 45 in the field of physical chemistry. Notably, as a co-founder of the AI new drug development platform company ‘Hitz,’ he has conducted multi-year advanced AI new drug development education projects with pharmaceutical and bio companies and led major related government projects.

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