Once focused mainly on generic medicines, Korea’s pharma sector has leveraged significant new investments in R&D to transform itself into a true player in the global market-with aspirations as a future top-tier contributor to new medicines innovation.
When I left Janssen, I never imagined joining a Korean company, recalls Choi Tae-Hung, sipping a freshly brewed yujacha tea in his office on a crisp autumn morning as he gazes down at the busy, sundrenched streets of Seoul below. I thought that the global business of Korean pharmaceutical companies would be very limited due to a lack of competitive R&D or marketing capabilities. Choi spent two decades at Janssen before moving on, but when he did, it was to become president of Korean pharmaceutical company Boryung in 2013. After speaking to a number of people within the industry, I realized that everyone was talking about big changes in strategic direction for domestic pharmaceutical companies. The new focus for these businesses was on the global market, explains Choi.
, the country's large conglomerates, have in large part been responsible for building the country's reputation in the fields of electronics, shipbuilding and automotive. Today, Korea's government is looking to develop growth in new sectors outside of this traditional base; pharma has been selected as one of these new sectors. The race is now on to position Korea as the Asian hub for pharma R&D and new drug development (NDD), something that only a few years ago would have been unthinkable: a situation mirrored in other Asian countries such as Taiwan and Singapore.
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In the past, Korea's pharmaceutical makers focused mostly on generics, admits Korea's Minister of Health and Welfare Moon Hyung-Pyo. However, today they are in the process of transforming into brand-name manufacturers by investing more in R&D and developing innovative drugs. The Korean government is very active in helping the drug industry to become truly worldclass. With all of these factors combined together, Korea's healthcare industry will soon join the ranks of global healthcare power houses.
Korea is in a unique position in terms of new drug development, explains Lee Kyeong-Ho, chairman and CEO of the Korea Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (KPMA). Indeed, Korea has already successfully brought 22 new drugs to the market between 1999 and 2014, two of which have been approved by the US FDA. Korean companies have had an interesting experience in developing innovation, but not game-changing innovative new drugs which require significant money and manpower that we do not have enough of yet, Lee continues. Nevertheless, we do have successful experience in creating incremental innovation, and this has been an excellent experience for Korean companies, he adds.
Leading the charge in boosting Korea's regional competitiveness for pharma and R&D is the Korea Health Industry Development Institute (KHIDI), Korea's sole public institution designed to foster growth in the healthcare industries, like pharmaceuticals, healthcare technology, cosmetics, and health systems. It has already been eight years since global healthcare was selected as one of 17 growth engines of our nation, and we have been somewhat successful in inbound business like attracting foreign patients and physicians for training, remarks Jung Kee-Taig, president of KHIDI. In terms of outbound business, we hope to create those success cases more frequently and this business can be a mature and major industry for Korea's growth by 2020. Koreans really want to win and be number one in everything, rather than being perceived as the little brother of China or Japan, says UCB Korea managing director Tom Roberts.
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There is a solid support system behind Korea's Pharma Vision 2020. The level of quality approval in Korea compared to Europe and the US for products like biologics is usually the same; sometimes it is even better but this is not recognized worldwide, says Chung Seung, Minister of Food and Drug Safety. Since becoming Minister in 2013, Seung has already taken a number of efforts to ensure the Ministry actively participates in forums, working groups and international organizations to promote Korean medical products. In July 2014, Korea officially joined PIC/S, which created a framework where international creditworthiness of domestic medical products' quality can be elevated. We will actively provide support to develop biological products such as stem cell therapy products by fully implementing a 'Support Scheme for Global Biological Products', which aims at becoming one of the world's top seven powerhouses in the biological product field by 2017. The Ministry will rigorously support commercialization of vaccines, biosimilars, stem cell therapy products and gene therapy products. We will also support domestic pharmaceutical companies advancing into the global vaccine market while also expanding our self-sufficiency rate from 32 to 70 percent in the domestic vaccine market over the next six years.
However, becoming a top-tier nation for pharmaceuticals will take time and effort. Hakim Djaballah, CEO of Institut Pasteur Korea, believes that without attracting the international know-how necessary for solid tech transfer, the goals of Pharma Vision 2020 are more of a dream than reality. The infrastructure for basic research is already in place and translational research is beginning to take off, but the infrastructure to take that into a product still does not exist, comments Djaballah. Compared to other countries with facilities for API production, Korea is still at the starting line. It does not mean they cannot achieve it; Korea is geographically attractive and the country just needs to invest in building the industry scale infrastructure to produce APIs.
Local flagship company Boryung has found success with its newly developed angiotension receptor blocker (ARB) Kanarb. Nine molecules currently exist worldwide in this category of antihypertensives, and Kanarb is currently ranked eighth. Boryung is the only domestic company that has developed a drug from start to finish, including outlicensing. Of course, other companies have developed new chemical entities (NCEs). But in terms of experience Boryung is different. From discovery and development to product launch and internationalization, Boryung has experiences that other companies cannot imitate, explains Choi Tae-Hong, Boryung's president. Given Kanarb's competitiveness, multinationals are our new competitors.
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Could Boryung be one of the two top 50 companies that are planned in Korea's Pharma Vision 2020? Our own strategic objective is not to make Boryung a top 50 company in terms of sales size, but rather to make Boryung the best company in Korea in terms of marketing and R&D capability, Choi reveals. My dream is for Boryung to be at least number one in Korea. I do not know what the company's rank in 2020 will be globally, but that is not so important as long as we achieve our strategic goal year by year.
Hanmi is a Korean pharma heavyweight, and is the highest R&D spender in the Korean pharma sector, with KRW 100 billion (USD 90 million) invested in 2013. We can lead Korean pharmaceutical companies in the R&D field, believes Lee Gwan-Sun, Hanmi's CEO. We are interactive in some external R&D activities from recent venture companies and from a very early stage we can select some candidates or compounds which can be a synergy with our current pipelines. In that sense, Hanmi can be a role model.
Founded in 1984 and listed in 2002, with three production centers and three R&D facilities, Daehwa Pharmaceutical's anticancer drug DHP107 aims to provide an oral version of Paclitaxel – a new 'Made in Korea' product. As Lee Han-Koo, president of Daehwa, explains, there is no such thing as a single injection for oncology. One drug has to be used in conjunction with other anticancer drugs, such as enhancers that need to be interactive with each other. DHP107 avoids this situation altogether. After finishing clinical trials, Lee hopes to receive approval for DHP107 by the end of 2015 and start marketing the product first in Korea and then to other emerging markets in the region. Daehwa currently exports to 22 markets worldwide; Lee is bullish about future growth: Of course we will expand to satisfy all people's needs, he explains. However, the methods of expanding could be diversified. For example, we have recently signed a technical contract with Iran. We send the products first and will build a plant later. We also will have made our spot in Chengdu, China. Furthermore, following the market situation and requests, we will expand our business territory to the whole world.
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Ambition and innovation is not limited to the biggest or best funded Korean labs; domestic companies of all sizes and levels of experience are prioritizing R&D investment and planning to develop new drugs in the future. Korea Pharma is a prime example, and Chairman Park Jae-Don explains they have become involved in several R&D projects with a few different partners over the past few years. One such project is a pre-clinical trial for a dementia treatment based on osmotin, an ingredient extracted from tobacco leaves, in conjunction with Kyeong-Sang University, while they are also working with an overseas partner to develop a product that treats disease caused by bacteria resistant to CEPA antibiotics, and are currently conducting late phase clinical trials.
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Could Boryung be one of the two top 50 companies that are planned in Korea's Pharma Vision 2020? Our own strategic objective is not to make Boryung a top 50 company in terms of sales size, but rather to make Boryung the best company in Korea in terms of marketing and R&D capability, Choi reveals. My dream is for Boryung to be at least number one in Korea. I do not know what the company's rank in 2020 will be globally, but that is not so important as long as we achieve our strategic goal year by year.
Hanmi is a Korean pharma heavyweight, and is the highest R&D spender in the Korean pharma sector, with KRW 100 billion (USD 90 million) invested in 2013. We can lead Korean pharmaceutical companies in the R&D field, believes Lee Gwan-Sun, Hanmi's CEO. We are interactive in some external R&D activities from recent venture companies and from a very early stage we can select some candidates or compounds which can be a synergy with our current pipelines. In that sense, Hanmi can be a role model.
Founded in 1984 and listed in 2002, with three production centers and three R&D facilities, Daehwa Pharmaceutical's anticancer drug DHP107 aims to provide an oral version of Paclitaxel – a new 'Made in Korea' product. As Lee Han-Koo, president of Daehwa, explains, there is no such thing as a single injection for oncology. One drug has to be used in conjunction with other anticancer drugs, such as enhancers that need to be interactive with each other. DHP107 avoids this situation altogether. After finishing clinical trials, Lee hopes to receive approval for DHP107 by the end of 2015 and start marketing the product first in Korea and then to other emerging markets in the region. Daehwa currently exports to 22 markets worldwide; Lee is bullish about future growth: Of course we will expand to satisfy all people's needs, he explains. However, the methods of expanding could be diversified. For example, we have recently signed a technical contract with Iran. We send the products first and will build a plant later. We also will have made our spot in Chengdu, China. Furthermore, following the market situation and requests, we will expand our business territory to the whole world.
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Ambition and innovation is not limited to the biggest or best funded Korean labs; domestic companies of all sizes and levels of experience are prioritizing R&D investment and planning to develop new drugs in the future. Korea Pharma is a prime example, and Chairman Park Jae-Don explains they have become involved in several R&D projects with a few different partners over the past few years. One such project is a pre-clinical trial for a dementia treatment based on osmotin, an ingredient extracted from tobacco leaves, in conjunction with Kyeong-Sang University, while they are also working with an overseas partner to develop a product that treats disease caused by bacteria resistant to CEPA antibiotics, and are currently conducting late phase clinical trials.
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