Korea’s exports of medical and pharmaceutical products to China increased this year, while imports fell, government data showed.According to data from the Korea Customs Service, Korea’s trade with China of medical products under HS Code 30 posted a $46.54 million (50.49 billion won) surplus between January and October this year, after a $10.65 million trade deficit last year. Korea e
Korean biotech firms with major pipelines in cord blood banks and umbilical cord stem cells have enjoyed substantial stock price gains this year.Cord blood-related business firms, such as Kang Stem Biotech, Green Cross Lab Cell, Sewon Cellon Tech, and CHA Biotech, all saw their share prices rising this year.Green Cross Lab Cell, in particular, recently went on a rally for 12 consecutive tr
The surging of Tego Science shares on Kosdaq on Thursday drew attention, primarily because most of pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical stocks fell.The manufacturer of wound-healing skin cell treatments saw its stocks jumping 25 percent to 96,600 won ($88.8) per share on Thursday, a record high since the initial public offering on Nov. 6, 2014.Despite institutional investors’ net-selli
After hospitals came under fire for senior physicians’ sexual violence against juniors, pharmaceutical companies are following suit. Pfizer Korea on Thursday was in the hot seat for punishing a senior employee for sexual harassment, following Novartis Korea’s sexual scandal a day earlier.Pfizer’s case was revealed through an anonymity mobile application Blind, where a pharmaceutical indust
With researchers actively using nanotechnology to treat diseases, the nanomedicine market is expected to grow rapidly, a report said.Using nanotechnology, nano drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration include Johnson & Johnson’s ovarian cancer and HIV treatment Doxil, Celsion’s liver cancer treatment ThermoDox, and Celgene’s breast cancer treatment Abraxane.A recent repo
“Multinational companies are leading the local digital healthcare industry. We need an association to tackle this issue.”It was the message shared among digital healthcare experts when the Korea Digital Health Industry Association (KoDHIA) officially launched and held an inaugural meeting at the Korea Scout Association’s office in Yeouido, Seoul, on Tuesday.Consisting of experts from s
A local hospital is drawing attention by winning a patent in cognitive rehabilitation treatment using a 3D virtual reality (VR) technology.The Gil Medical Center and Gachon University’s industry-university cooperation foundation said on Monday they registered the patent in “a method and system using 3D virtual reality for the treatment of cognitive impairment.” Professor Lee Ju-kang of Gachon
On Korea’s secondary stock market, foreign investors net bought the shares of Celltrion and ViroMed among local pharmaceuticals while net selling stocks of Medytox and Hugel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 24, industry data showed.Celltrion and Celltrion Healthcare, the two largest Kosdaq-listed firms by market capitalization, also ranked first and second in the list of those net purchased by foreign
The number of clinical trials on CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapies surged to more than 100 this year from two in 2015, drawing the attention of the industry watchers.CAR-T cell therapies are new treatments to genetically modify receptor genes in T-cells, one of the immunocytes, to recognize cancer cells as antigen and kill them. CAR-T technology injects modified genes in T-cel
The labor union of Zuellig Pharma Korea has launched a series of one-man protests in front of the Embassy of France in Seoul on Thursday after its wage bargaining with the management broke down.Earlier last month, the National Labor Relations Commission recommended that the management of the drugmaker “increase the basic annual salary by 3.1 percent and pay 1.5 million won ($1,366) to each wor
One can find quite a few people working not just in multinational pharmaceutical companies but in the domestic drugmakers, based on their careers as “medical doctors.” People call them “medical science liaison (MSL).” There are criticisms, however, the role of MSL within pharmaceutical companies is focused too much on marketing.Among such critics is Professor Lee Dong-ho of the Asan Medical Ce
ViroMed said it would conduct a phase 1 clinical trial on CAR-T (chimeric antigen receptor T-cell) therapy, a new cancer-targeting immunotherapy, in the U.S. market by 2020-2022. The Korea-based biotech venture last year entered into an exclusive license agreement with Nasdaq-listed Bluebird bio to develop CAR-T therapies.CAR-T therapies enable T-cells in the blood to selectively target cancer
With a magnitude 5.4 quake hitting Pohang in North Gyeongsang Province, industry officials raised concerns that Pohang-based biopharmaceutical firms might suffer damages to their expensive equipment.The latest earthquake was the second biggest in Korea since the nation began recording tectonic plate movements in 1978. The most potent quake hit Gyeongju, also North Gyeongsang Province, last Sep
As the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology redefined high blood pressure as a reading of 130/80㎜Hg, down from 140/ 90㎜Hg, their Korean counterpart’s revised guideline to be announced early next year is drawing attention.Applying the new U.S. guidelines to Korea, the number of Korean hypertension patients will rise from 10 million to 16.5 million, according to an a
The share prices of InBody, a manufacturer of body composition analyzers, are on the rise on the Kosdaq market, with its third-quarter earnings hitting a record high.The Seoul-based company posted 24.44 billion won ($21.86 million) in sales in the third quarter, jumping 35.9 percent from 17.98 billion won a year earlier. Operating profit also surged 51.5 percent year-on-year to 4.61 billion wo
A research result about the “nocebo effect” of statin, the base material for medications to treat dyslipidemia, has recently drawn a lot of attention from the medical community. Nocebo effect, which is the opposite concept of the placebo effect, refers to a phenomenon that if patients have doubts about a medicine’s effect, the drug does not get to work.British researchers conducted the ASCOT-L
Biopharmaceutical firms are showing strong performance on South Korea’s tech-heavy Kosdaq market.As of Monday at noon, four among the top five Kosdaq-listed firms by market capitalization, or eight among the top 20, were biopharmaceutical companies. The combined market cap of the eight biopharma firms takes up about 20 percent of the Kosdaq’s total market cap.Celltrion Pharm, in partic
Combined market capitalization of Celltrion Group, Samsung BioLogics and Hanmi Pharma Group took up nearly half of the market cap of healthcare companies listed on the Korean stock markets last year, a report said.The report, released by Samsung Securities Tuesday, also showed the healthcare sector also accounted for 6 percent of the total stock markets.According to the report, the num
Daewoong Pharmaceutical is known for its strong marketing ability among local drugmakers. However, an increasing number of its salespersons, who bolster its business ability, are unhappy about how Daewoong’s management is running the company.Their complaints focus on the new personnel system introduced by Chairman Yoon Jae-seung 윤재승 since he took office in September 2014. After Yoon’s inaugura
The exclusive contract between ViroMed and Reyon Pharmaceutical to jointly develop gene therapy VM202 to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, has ended up as a patent legal battle between the two.Reyon recently filed a lawsuit against ViroMed for a transfer of the holder of VM202’s patent rights.Reyon claims it should have a 50 percent stake in VM202