Seoul: The government established a national bio committee Thursday with an aim to make South Korea one of five global leaders in the bio industry by 2035, the science ministry said. The committee will be in charge of devising a strategy to foster the bio industry as a future growth engine, according to the Ministry of Science and ICT.
According to Yonhap News Agency, the committee plans to create a 1 trillion-won (US$695.7 million) fund to promote private investment in the biopharmaceuticals and vaccine industry. It aims to expand the production capacity of local contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs) by 2.5 times to help South Korea hit No. 1 in CDMO sales globally by 2032.
The committee will assist the country in independently developing about 15 percent of its core biomaterials, parts, and equipment by 2030. Additionally, the committee will work to innovate the research and development (R and D) system of biopharmas by reducing the time and cost of new drug development to half of the current requirements.
It will push for the integration of bio and other technologies, such as artificial intelligence and data science, to foster more innovation. The committee plans to create a national bio data platform to secure 10 million units of data by 2035 and an advanced computing infrastructure with at least 3,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) for bio research.
The committee will also create a consultative body of bio clusters in the country to promote cooperation between them and strengthen collaboration with foreign bio clusters. The science ministry said the committee will also work to train 110,000 new talents in the bio-health industry by 2027.