[New Year's Address] Cha Sun-do, Director of the Promotion Institute, "Leap to a Bio and Digital Health-Centered Nation"

Cha Sun-do, President of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (Photo by Korea Health Industry Development Institute)

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Chun-hee] On the 2nd, Cha Soon-do, President of the Korea Health Industry Development Institute, stated in his New Year's address, "In 2023, to leap forward as a bio and digital health-centered nation, we will focus on discovering future growth seeds, advancing as an export-leading industry, and planning new health and medical research and development (R&D) projects."

President Cha said, "Last year, the export value of the health industry reached $25.5 billion," and evaluated, "Despite the COVID-19 crisis, the health industry has established itself as a promising export industry by ranking 7th among Korea's export items for three consecutive years."

He added, "The health industry has been recognized as the next-generation growth engine for the nation and industry overall, as well as a future new industry," emphasizing, "This year, the health and medical R&D budget managed by the institute is 722.4 billion KRW, approaching the 1 trillion KRW era, which means the institute's responsibility as a national research and development management organization and an industry promotion agency in the health and medical field has become even more important."

President Cha presented three key tasks for leaping forward as a global bio and digital health hub. First, through discovering future growth seeds, he said, "We will take the lead in proactively and creatively developing policies to strengthen global competitiveness and propose them to the government," and "We will also strive to develop policies for balanced regional development of the health and medical industry."

Furthermore, to advance as an export-leading industry, he stated, "We will focus on creating an innovative ecosystem through regulatory innovation and fostering convergence-type talent," and "We will continue to promote future medical innovation support projects in the digital health era." Regarding new health and medical R&D planning, he explained, "We will strengthen the function of planning new R&D such as building a national bio big data platform," and "We will focus investments on next-generation core technologies such as innovative new drugs, digital therapeutics (DTx), and regenerative medical treatments, actively supporting the government's future medical core technology development projects."

Finally, President Cha said, "In 2023, we will do our best to successfully address the challenges facing our health industry," and promised, "We will fulfill our role as an industry promotion agency that illuminates the bright future of the health industry and fulfills social responsibility."

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