Fostering the Pharmaceutical and Bio Industry Requires More Than Just 'Behind-the-Scenes Communication'

Health Security and National Wealth Creation... Major Pledges Since Yoon Seok-yeol's Candidacy
Pharmaceutical Bio Innovation Committee Excluded from 110 National Tasks
Industry Doubts on Communication Efforts... Opinions Must Be Gathered from Policy Planning Stage

President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol is touring the laboratory during his visit to SK Bioscience in Bundang-gu, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on the morning of the 25th of last month. [Provided by the Office of the President-elect Spokesperson]

[Asia Economy Reporter Lee Gwan-joo] One of the major pledges of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration, which will officially launch on the 10th, is the promotion of the pharmaceutical and bio industry. President-elect Yoon Suk-yeol has consistently emphasized since his candidacy that the pharmaceutical and bio industry is "a new path for establishing health security and creating national wealth." The 110 national tasks recently announced by the Presidential Transition Committee also include "leaping to become a global hub for bio and digital health."

The domestic pharmaceutical and bio industry has expressed great expectations for such a pledge. However, it is also true that questions have arisen within the industry regarding the actions of President-elect Yoon and the Transition Committee so far. Since the Transition Committee was launched in March, the only publicly known activities related to the pharmaceutical and bio industry by President-elect Yoon and the committee were the visit to SK Bioscience on the 25th of last month and a private meeting with Joaquin Duato, CEO of Johnson & Johnson. Considering it was a major pledge, there has not even been an official industry roundtable.

In particular, the so-called "Pharmaceutical Bio Innovation Committee (Innovation Committee)," which had raised industry expectations, was omitted from the Yoon Suk-yeol administration’s 110 national tasks. The industry has strongly demanded the establishment of a control tower that can formulate mid- to long-term strategies encompassing research and development, policy financing, tax support, regulatory improvement, and workforce training, and effectively coordinate policies across ministries. This is because a core institution is needed to harmonize regulatory and industrial policies and foster the industry through selection and concentration. Since President-elect Yoon mentioned the establishment of the Innovation Committee during his visit to SK Bioscience, there remains a possibility of pursuing it in the mid to long term, but its immediate omission from the national tasks was enough to raise doubts within the industry.

Of course, it is known that there have been behind-the-scenes communication efforts between the pharmaceutical and bio industry and the Transition Committee. However, broader collection of opinions from the field is necessary for active promotion of the pharmaceutical and bio industry. Voices are calling for systematic and practical strategies to be established by gathering opinions from field experts from the policy planning stage, including company site visits and public roundtables with the industry. A pharmaceutical and bio industry official clearly defined the limitations of past policies by saying, "The government acted on its own, and the industry acted on its own." The gap between policy and the field only becomes an obstacle to industry promotion. Behind-the-scenes communication alone cannot properly diagnose the reality of the pharmaceutical and bio industry.

The 110 national tasks document of the Yoon Suk-yeol administration describes the goals for fostering the pharmaceutical and bio industry as ▲leaping to become a strong nation in vaccines and therapeutics through focused investment in health security strategic technologies and strengthening global cooperation ▲developing the biohealth industry as a leading export industry and improving public health by spreading advanced and precision medicine based on digital healthcare and big data. To realize these goals, efforts to listen more closely to voices from the field seem necessary.