Samjin Pharmaceutical said Wednesday it will participate as a joint research institution in a government-led national project to develop new drugs using artificial intelligence.

Samjin Pharm is joining the “2025 K-AI New Drug Development Preclinical and Clinical Model Development Project,” led by the Ministry of Health and Welfare. This is a large-scale national R&D initiative totaling 37.1 billion won ($25.2 million). The primary goal is to establish Korea's first AI-based clinical trial design and support platform for new drug development.

The project is overseen by the AI New Drug Research Institute of the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association (KPBMA), with participation from major industry companies, universities, research institutions, and hospitals.

Within this collaborative framework, Samjin Pharm participates as a co-institution in the “Translational Research AI Software Development” field, which is led by Seoul National University Hospital.

The company will be responsible for producing and standardizing preclinical multimodal data, utilizing and validating AI-based clinical trial designs, and demonstrating the feasibility of IND approval.

More specifically, it will provide preclinical data across various fields, such as oncology and metabolic diseases, and help build high-quality preclinical–clinical multimodal data. Furthermore, the company plans to enhance the quality of AI model training by utilizing diverse experimental data generated during the preclinical stage. It will also focus on applying AI models to the actual clinical design of candidate compounds and improving model accuracy based on validation results.

Through this project, Samjin Pharm aims to establish a “data feedback-based research system” that uses an AI prediction–experimental validation cycle, thereby bridging the data gap between preclinical and clinical stages and significantly increasing the likelihood of clinical trial success. This will contribute to tangible achievements in domestic AI-driven drug development, according to Samjin officials.

“This K-AI project will be a turning point where prediction-centered AI-driven drug discovery expands into the actual clinical trial design phase,” said Lee Soo-min, Head of the Samjin Pharmaceutical Research Center. “Samjin Pharm will contribute to the development of the domestic AI-driven drug discovery ecosystem by serving as a central hub connecting preclinical data and the research field.”