'Will Bio Industry Struggle Next Year?'... "Overcome by Anticipating Trends in Advance"

The Korea Bio Association held the "Bio Industry Trends and Prospects Seminar" on the 20th. (Photo by Korea Bio Association)

[Asia Economy Reporter Chunhee Lee] The Korea Bio Association announced on the 21st that it held the ‘Bio Industry Trends and Prospects Seminar’ on the 20th, attended by about 70 bio industry stakeholders.

The seminar, held with the purpose of examining key issues attracting the entire industry’s attention and previewing next year, featured presentations on ▲ Growth opportunities in the global healthcare sector in 2023 (Jinhan Shim, Senior Manager at Frost & Sullivan) ▲ Current and future M&A strategies of Korean companies (Jesung Pyeon, Manager at Deloitte) ▲ Trends in KOSDAQ and KONEX listings (Imjae Lee, Deputy General Manager at Korea Exchange) ▲ Global investment trends in bio healthcare (Soonwook Jung, Director at Korea Investment Partners), among others.

Oh Ki-hwan, Head of the Bio Economy Research Center at the Bio Association and chair of the seminar, mentioned the recent difficult business conditions in the industry such as weakened investment sentiment, increased costs of imported raw materials and overseas clinical trials, corporate restructuring, and pipeline reorganization. At the same time, he noted that these circumstances coincide with new entries into the bio sector by large corporations, raising interest in mergers and acquisitions (M&A). He also introduced key keywords for next year from the industry’s perspective in various fields, including insurance listing of domestically developed digital therapeutics (DTx), bio-plastic certification, and the opening of the U.S. cultured meat market.

Jinhan Shim of Frost & Sullivan foresaw ten issues that will drive the expansion of the global healthcare market next year, including information management systems linking medical care and IT, robotic surgery, wearable devices, AI-based diagnostics, antibody-drug conjugates (ADC), and point-of-care diagnostic devices.

Jesung Pyeon of Deloitte predicted that next year, as pharmaceutical and bio companies undergo market revaluation, the gap between buyers and sellers will narrow to acceptable values, leading to more active M&A driven by strategic investors (SI). Imjae Lee of Korea Exchange introduced precautions and preparations for the listing process, know-how on utilizing special listing exceptions based on technology evaluation, and the current status of technology evaluation model development.

Soonwook Jung of Korea Investment Partners mentioned this year’s venture capital (VC) investment status in the global healthcare market, exit trends, active M&A in the new drug sector, and somewhat sluggish domestic new investment status. He advised preparing strategies such as pipeline adjustments in case investment sentiment does not recover next year.

Center Head Oh Ki-hwan stated, "Although the bio industry is expected to face difficulties overall until next year, I hope companies interested in listing, fundraising, and M&A will wisely prepare for next year by understanding global market trends in advance and reviewing the matters they need to consider."

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