On all counts, 2022 marked yet another memorable year for Korea’s bioindustry. Stories related to Covid-19 regarding quarantine and mask mandates garnered a lot of interest from our viewers as quarantine officials adopted a phased approach to relaxing mandates throughout the year.

Of particular note was the article, Pfizer points to pneumococcal vaccine’s effects in treating long Covid, where a health expert suggested using pneumococcal vaccines, including Pfizer’s, for Covid-19 patients, noting that respiratory infection causes most of the hospitalization of those who developed sequelae even after a full recovery.

Another infectious disease outbreak of monkeypox also made a splash in the headlines as many monitored carefully to see whether this would turn into another pandemic with diagnostic kit makers rushing to produce monkeypox diagnostic tests. Together, infectious disease news occupied most of the top 10 spots.

Other news that piqued the interest of our readers included some unique stories on a wide range of health issues including dementia and Alzheimer’s, metaverse and AI in healthcare, and hair loss issues, among others.

ESG was also an emerging theme this year in the biopharmaceutical industry with many bio companies publishing reports to show their commitments to responsible biopharmaceutical management in the areas of environment, social, and governance. Korea Biomedical Review paid special attention to this trend and held its first conference highlighting an ESG theme in November with over 100 industry officials from domestic and multinational pharmaceutical firms participating.

Aside from this listing, Korea Biomedical Review (KBR) was also cited quite frequently in news reports by international news outlets like Fierce Pharma and international organizations like the International Vaccines Institute (IVI). Most times, the news concerning layoffs and union strikes for big pharma companies like Sanofi and Norvo Nordisk but Hanmi Pharmaceutical’s liver function drug and Celltrion’s Regkirona Covid-19 were also noticed.

Additionally, with Korea’s designation in February as a global training hub for biomanufacturing (GTH-B) by the World Health Organization (WHO), IVI hosted training programs on vaccines and biologics development and manufacturing. Here, KBR was at the forefront exclusively covering the WHO’s initiative to disperse the biomanufacturing capacity to enable a better response to future pandemics.