[BIO KOREA 2025] AstraZeneca brings BioVentureHub model to Korea with trust-first startup partnerships

AstraZeneca doesn’t just want to partner with Korean startups -- it wants to change how they grow. 

“We don’t have a monopoly on innovation today,” said Magnus Björsne, head of AstraZeneca’s BioVentureHub, in an interview held Wednesday at BIO KOREA 2025. “But we can differentiate ourselves in how we collaborate with others. And that is changing.”

That model -- open innovation, trust-first partnerships, and long-term alignment -- is already being tested in Korea, according to Björsne. He said AstraZeneca signed a letter of intent with FUST Lab, a Korean startup that specializes in ultrasonic dispersion and emulsification equipment, last week, with a follow-up meeting between the two companies scheduled for Thursday.

“They’ve never worked with pharma before, but that’s exactly the point,” he said. “They have a technology we’re keen to understand, and that’s where collaboration begins.”

These aren’t transactions, he emphasized, but experiments in what he calls the “circular economy of pharma” -- where the currency is no longer cash, but shared knowledge and data, exchanged in a “win-win setting” where startups gain insight into industry problems their tech might solve. Because they’re not competing with one another, he added, the companies inside the hub can build trust -- and grow faster -- together.

Still, even the most promising ideas won’t get far unless they can scale. And on that front, he and his Korean colleagues are aligned: the country is still too fragmented, too cautious -- and, increasingly, too slow.

“China is several steps ahead in terms of going to the next phase,” said Chon Se-whan, country president of AstraZeneca Korea, during the interview. “Collaboration between government, academia, and industry is extremely well organized.”

Korea, by comparison, remains packed with early-stage startups that never move beyond proof-of-concept. “There are many Korean biotechs with truly great concepts,” Chon said. “But many don’t know what to do next.”

Despite running more than 180 clinical trials in Korea -- “probably the most of any multinational here,” he added -- AstraZeneca now sees the country trailing China in translating talent into scalable innovation. “You might know your field better than anyone, and your idea might be brilliant,” he said. “But you can’t commercialize it with knowledge alone.”

The bigger challenge, he said, is knowing how to navigate what comes after the breakthrough. “You need to know what the next step is, and the step after that,” he said. “If you can’t take it all the way yourself, then who will you sell to? Who will pick it up?”

That’s where AstraZeneca believes it can offer leverage: not by taking over, but by offering what Björsne calls the frameworks that big pharma already has in place. “Innovation is not something you can order on a piece of paper,” he said. “It’s a contact sport. When people meet, ideas grow.”

Björsne wants Korea to adopt what Sweden already has: a trust-first model where startups sit inside AstraZeneca’s Gothenburg R&D site -- not to be controlled, but to be close. 

He describes it as a “no competition environment,” where companies share early and pharma takes the long view. “In late-stage deals, it’s just about the transaction -- what’s the value, how much are you paying?” he said. “But in early-stage partnerships, if you don’t have trust, the collaboration falls apart. The outcome is uncertain. It’s like a gamble.”

Trust takes time. Especially, Björsne said, when one side is the size of AstraZeneca and the other is a fledgling startup. “These small companies, when they come in and work with us, it’s basically like David and Goliath,” he said. “In the early years, we spent most of our energy just building trust.”

That model is now being tested in Korea. Chon reeled off a growing list of partners: Oncosoft, Humanscape, Inocras, 3billion, Alteogen, AIVIS. On the larger end, AstraZeneca is also working with Daewoong Pharmaceutical, Dong-A ST, Samsung Biologics, SK bioscience, and SK chemicals. 

“We’ve signed a tremendous number of MOUs in the last year and a half,” he said. “Probably more than any other multinational here.” But a signed MOU isn’t a guarantee. It’s just the first step. “If a company like AIVIS proves its value in Korea, we could help them expand to other countries,” Chon said. “That’s our goal.”

Getting there, though, will require more than government support and early funding. It will take execution, and just as importantly, humility. “Korea has strong individual talent,” Chon said. “But we’re fragmented. And China has already overcome that.”

He pointed to the Cambridge Cluster in the United Kingdom and AstraZeneca’s own BioVentureHub in Gothenburg as examples of what coordinated infrastructure can achieve. Over the past decade, about 70 companies have passed through the Swedish hub, with roughly 30 still active, according to Björsne.

“These are structures Korea can learn from,” Chon said. “Quickly -- before China gets too far ahead.” The window, he suggested, is still open. “We haven’t lost our chance yet,” he said. “But we have to move fast.”

Government, he added, can only do so much. “They’re busy. They don’t always have the continuity or expertise to run it fully,” he said. “That’s why this has to be more than 100 percent a shared effort.”

Back on the exhibit floor, Björsne had already made plans to meet with FUST Lab again. “I hope I will be able to come back,” he said. “The startup scene in Korea is really, really interesting. But we need to increase partnerships in early discovery. That’s where the momentum is.”