The Coordinating Center for Global Innovative Biotherapeutics (COGIB) analyzed the latest trends in the domestic innovative biotherapeutic field and anticipated its future global market, at the “Innovative Biotherapeutic Forcast Forum,” Tuesday.
The forum focused on two primary topics -- clinical strategy and trend analysis, and government policy for fostering innovative biotherapeutic. Innovative biotherapeutic includes stem-cell and gene therapy.
Cha Ki-won 차기원 , a senior researcher for the new drug development support center at COGIB, said the industry and government need to cooperate in having a "preemptive response" to the development of innovative biotherapeutic.
"In the last year alone, hundreds of ventures and start-ups related with biotherapeutic have started in Korea," Cha said. "Government and industry forecasts for future market changes are critical to achieving substantial results.”
The cutting-edge idea of current biotherapeutic companies need to be created into a program that will lead to any future companies in the field, Cha added.
Cho Hun-jae 조헌제, managing director of the Korea Drug Research Association 한국신약개발연구조합, emphasized that if Korea was to thrive in the biotherapeutic market, it needs to invest more in new and candidate drug substances.
“Korea’s biotherapeutic pipeline process is divided into new and candidates drug substance, preclinical trials and clinical trials,” Cho said. “However, among the entire new drug development processes, most of Korea’s pipelines are concentrated on either the clinical or preclinical trials.”
Governmental policy support for the discovering new and candidate drug substances is the key to the future development of innovative biopharmaceutical, Cho added.
COGIB is currently working to launch innovative global biotherapeutic and promoting domestic biotherapeutic companies into a world-class company. To achieve its goal, COGIB is supporting four leading-biotherapeutic enterprises – Sillajen 신라젠, Kolon Life Science 코오롱생명과학, Medipost 메디포스트 and Genexine 제넥신 -- with a 40 billion won ($36.4 million) research grant from the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. The center currently provides the company with administrative and research project support.