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| President Yoon Suk-yeol, front center, listens to how a liquid nitrogen freezer works to store blood, cells and Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) at National Biobank of Korea under the Korea National Institute of Health in Cheongju, North Chungcheong Province, May 26. Korea Times file |
By Lee Kyung-min
The government will help local vaccine developers and key pharmaceutical ingredient makers strengthen cooperation with their prospective business partners overseas, mostly in the areas of technical cooperation, raw input material trading supply and exports, officials said, Thursday.
The government assistance is buttressed by a rosy global pharmaceutical industry outlook, as presented by the research findings of Airfinity, a global health intelligence and analytics services provider. It said that the COVID-19 vaccine market amounted to $65.6 billion (84.4 trillion won) last year, more than double the size of the non-COVID-19 vaccine market, which stood at $33 billion.
KoreaBio, a private organization representing about 600 local firms, said that the COVID-19 vaccine market is expected to grow further, to $84.9 billion this year, a 29-percent year-on-year increase. Among those firms highly likely to report a robust performance this year are Pfizer and Moderna, two of America's multinational pharmaceuticals, and BioNTech SE, a German biotechnology firm. Korea's exports of vaccines rose to $510 million in 2021, up from $170 million in 2020.
Government measures
The coordinated measures by the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy and the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) are in response to calls of local market players who were not able to attend the BIO International Convention (BIO USA) 2022. Only 13 Korean firms attended the international event in San Diego, California, the U.S., from June 13 to June 16. Included in measures were requests by local participants of the four-day event seeking to solidify business relations with their global peers.
The two ministries said they organized an online event titled, "Global vaccine supply consultation," from Thursday through June 30.
This is the first joint assistance by trade and health authorities, mostly matching the capabilities and specialties of local firms to the needs of their counterparts from other countries. Forty-nine firms have expressed interest in joint business opportunities with Korean firms, including those in the U.S., the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Southeast Asia, Southwest Asia, Africa, Europe, Central America and South America and the Middle East.
The government will help local firms find global demand for made-in-Korea vaccines, as well as import and export demand for the raw ingredients needed to manufacture vaccine products.
Winning advance orders of pharmaceutical products will be another key goal, propped up by close exchanges of technical and research activities leading to an increase in contract manufacturing organizations (CMOs). CMOs are contract-based providers of drug development and manufacturing services in the pharmaceutical industry.
"The role of Korea in the global vaccine market should be strengthened, fortified by close business cooperation between local and overseas market players," a KoreaBio official said.
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