The nation’s market of medicine and medical supplies increased 12.9 percent from 2015 to 21.7 trillion won ($18.7 billion) last year, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Thursday.The medicine and medical supplies production increased 10.8 percent last year to about 18.8 trillion won, accounting for 1.15 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product and 4.31 percent of the manufacturing
Korea has become one of the first countries to warn the public of the depressive side-effects of finasteride, a hair loss medication, according to the Post-Finasteride Syndrome Foundation.The 5-alpha-reductase inhibitor drug, commonly known as Propecia, is an anti-balding drug used for hair loss and prostate enlargement. Some men who have taken finasteride have reported symptoms of depression,
A Korean research team has found two new genes that affect the onset of atrial fibrillation (AF), while proving five genes responsible for causing AF in Europeans to apply to Koreans, too.AF is a quivering or irregular heartbeat that can cause blood clots, stroke, health failure, and other heart-related complications. Genetic factors play a significant role in the occurrence of the disease bef
LG Chem’s diabetes drug Zemiglo has hit a sales milestone of 6 billion won ($5.2 million) in May, signaling the success of a marketing contract it concluded with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals, according to Ubist Wednesday.Zemiglo, the first home-grown diabetes drug, has seen a rapid increase in prescription after LG Chem signed a cooperative marketing contract with Daewoong Pharmaceuticals. LG
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced plans Tuesday to revise warning labels of 142 items, which include Finasteride, commonly used in treatment for male hair loss to indicate depressive and suicidal thoughts.Finasteride, often sold under the brand names Proscar and Propecia, is used to treat benign prostatic hyperplasia and male pattern hair loss.Merck & Co’s Propecia is the
So far domestic pharmacists have fought two wars, first with medical doctors and then with herb doctors. The druggists entered into their third war just now – with veterinarians over the sale of animal drugs.Currently, pharmacists can sell animal medicines at their stores if only they report to local administrations. The number of drugstores dealing with animal drugs totals about 4,000 as more
President Moon Jae-in nominated Park Neung-hoo박능후, a professor of Kyonggi University Department of Social Welfare, as minister of health and welfare Monday, completing his cabinet line-up.The nomination has caught many in the bureaucracy and industry off guard as they anticipated and prepared for the nomination of an expert with a background in health issues. The Korean Medical Association res
Pharmaceutical companies have been increasingly developing drugs for rare diseases, with these drugs accounting for 32 percent of the forecasted $1.06- trillion prescription drug sales by 2022, according to a recent report by EvaluatePharma.The so-called orphan drugs target a small population of patients who have a rare disease. In the United States, thousands of rare diseases affect fewer tha
The rising cost of health care is a global issue, and Michael Porter aims to solve it with a “value-based healthcare” (VBHC) system that prioritizes maximizing patient value above all.Experts made these and other points at the 8th annual Healthcare Innovation Seminar 2017 hosted by American Chamber of Commerce in Korea (AMCHAM) in Seoul Friday to discuss how Korea could use big data to make VB
Out of all tissue donations in Korea, only 26 percent are domestically procured, highlighting an import-dependent nation and a culture that is wary, or ignorant, of tissue donations, medical experts here say.Tissue donation, much like organ donation, is the process wherein individuals agree to donate a part of their body for use in transplants to living people who need tissue replacement due t
When foreign experts look at the Korean pharmaceutical industry, they wonder whether the sector meets three requirements: does it have the scale to invest in R&D, the science and technology to compete with advanced tech hubs such as Boston or San Francisco, or management capacity to run global R&D programs?So did Axel Baur, senior partner and leader of McKinsey’s Asia Healthcare Practice, at t
The “Global Bio Conference 2017 (GBC 2017)” kicked off its annual conference for a three-day run at Seoul Intercontinental Seoul COEX Hotel in southern Seoul Wednesday.The international conference, hosted by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (Minister Sohn Mun-gi) invited a host of domestic and foreign experts to discuss the role of the biopharmaceutical industry in leading the fourth indus
Handok Tuesday celebrated the completion of its state-of-the-art “plaster” plant, which will produce the company’s blockbuster patch, the “Ketotop Plaster.”Ketotop Plaster (ingredient: Ketoprofen) is a patch used to alleviate painful symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, spinal and backbone inflammations, and swollen joints. Handok한독 acquired the treatment by buying Pacific Pharmac
Il-yang Pharm (CEO: Kim Dong-yeon) has completed the first shipment of its reflux esophagitis drug to Cambodia, the company said.Noltec놀텍 (compound: Ilaprazole), regarded as a third-generation proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drug, is a gastric acid inhibitor developed by Il-yang Pharm as the country’s 14th indigenous drug.Il-yang일양약품 announced Monday that Cambodia's regulatory authorities
Korea has become the chairman country of the “Biosimilar Working Group” of the International Pharmaceutical Regulators Forum (IPRF), the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Monday.IPRF is an international group of regulatory bodies created to discuss medicine regulation around the world. The international organization has five working groups that facilitate regulatory cooperation and con
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration Thursday approved Haegarda, CSL Behring’s drug for hereditary angioedema (HAE), a rare genetic condition that affects around 8,000 people in the United States.Haegarda is an injection created from large pools of human plasma from U.S. donors administered under the skin to counter the rapid swelling of hands, feet, limbs, face, intestinal tract or airwa
EvaluatePharma, which analyzes pharmaceuticals and biotech companies, said oncology, or cancer treatment, will be the fastest growing therapy area with an expected annual growth of 12.7 percent and sales reaching $192.2 billion in 2022.Demand for immuno-oncology drugs is growing, and pharmaceutical companies are pushing out promising new compounds that are likely to keep the oncology market nu
The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) has global pharmaceutical companies and startups in a race to develop new products and services in all sectors. The field of healthcare is no exception with the U.S. leading the way in AI startups. Many startups partner with bigger companies or become part of the latter.The National Information Society Agency released a report Tuesday on promising AI
“Vaccine hesitancy” refers to a delay in acceptance or outright refusal of vaccines despite the availability of services.As a complex, multilayered and context-specific phenomenon varying across time, place, and vaccines, vaccine hesitancy is influenced by three factors called the “3Cs”: complacency, convenience, and confidence.Anti-vaccine groups exist all over the world, such as FACTOLL
Job creation has grown explosively in Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s research and development sector, in which the drugmaker has made an extensive investment in recent years, company officials said Wednesday.As things stand now, Hanmi and other pharmaceutical companies will be able to serve as priming water for the new government’s policy that focuses on the “fourth industrial revolution” and the “cre