The Ministry of Health and Welfare to Invest 877.7 Billion KRW to Foster the Pharmaceutical Industry

2022 1st Pharmaceutical Industry Promotion and Support Committee
Confirms This Year's Implementation Plan and Discusses the 3rd Comprehensive Plan

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Young-won] The Ministry of Health and Welfare has decided to invest 877.7 billion KRW this year to support the pharmaceutical industry, including new drug development.

On the 4th, the Ministry held the '2022 1st Pharmaceutical Industry Promotion and Support Committee' and finalized this implementation plan.

According to the implementation plan, the government will invest 877.7 billion KRW in 152 detailed projects across four major policy areas: new drug research and development, workforce training, export support, and system improvement.

First, support for the national new drug development project will be expanded from 45.1 billion KRW last year to 134.2 billion KRW this year. Additionally, 130 new projects have been added. For the development of treatments and vaccines for infectious diseases such as COVID-19, 97.3 billion KRW will be provided.

To foster talent, 12.5 billion KRW will be invested to establish a bio production and process specialist center and operate the Korean-style NIBRT (K-NIBRT) education program. NIBRT is a bio-specialist training center in Ireland with which an educational program operation contract has been signed, and the program is conducted domestically.

The export support system that meets field demand will also be strengthened. To establish a foothold for entering the U.S. market, the government will invest 1.09 billion KRW to create a base through shared offices within the Boston Bio Cluster. Furthermore, through consulting by overseas pharmaceutical experts and consulting agencies at clinical, approval, and production stages, domestic companies will be supported to enter overseas markets more extensively.

In addition, to invest in companies conducting clinical trials to develop innovative new drugs and vaccines, a fund worth 500 billion KRW is being promoted. The Ministry plans to concretely establish the fund formation plan, announce the investment project, and select an operating company.

On this day, the committee also discussed the plan to establish the '3rd Comprehensive Plan for Pharmaceutical Industry Promotion and Support.' The 3rd comprehensive plan, to be implemented from 2023 to 2027, is scheduled to be reviewed and finalized at the committee meeting to be held at the end of this year.

To this end, the Ministry will establish and operate a strategic planning team and eight detailed subcommittees under the committee and hold the first meeting in mid-this month. After collecting field opinions, tasks for three strategic subcommittees?system and regulation, research and development, investment and export, workforce and jobs?will be established.

Minister Kwon Deok-cheol of the Ministry of Health and Welfare said, "This year is an important time to establish the 3rd comprehensive plan to be implemented over the next five years," adding, "Various public and private stakeholders must actively cooperate to thoroughly analyze the achievements and limitations of the 2nd comprehensive plan and derive key tasks to be pursued in the future."

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