[Reporter’s Notebook] K-Bio in the Global Spotlight: Now Is the Time to Prove It

"This is a Korean event, right? There are so many people here that you can't get in anyway."

On the 14th (local time), during the ongoing JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPMHC), this kind of comment was heard several times among people passing by the entrance of the 'Korea Night' event held at The Howard Hotel in San Francisco, USA. Korea Night is a global networking event hosted by the Korea Bio Association.

This year's event drew a large crowd of key figures from North American, European, and Asian biotech companies, as well as global pharmaceutical and investment firms. Although the venue could accommodate about 650 people for a standing reception, more than 1,500 people had registered in advance. Korea Night has now transformed from simply being a gathering place for Koreans abroad to a destination where the global community seeks out Korea.

On the 14th (local time), during the ongoing JP Morgan Healthcare Conference (JPMHC), the 'Korea Night' event held at The Howard Hotel in San Francisco, USA, was filled with attendees. Korea Bio Association

This atmosphere was not limited to Korea Night. Throughout JPMHC, the way Korean companies were viewed shifted from simply recognizing their existence-"Does Korea have companies like this?"-to verifying their concrete competitiveness in areas like clinical trials and commercialization. Questions such as "What clinical data do you have?", "What are your target indications?", and "How reproducible and scalable is your platform technology?" were frequently asked.

Lee Seulgi, CEO of D&D Pharmatech, who was interviewed on-site at JPMHC, said, "It felt like there was special attention being given to Korean biotech," and added, "Perhaps due to the recent stock market climate, even global institutional investors who previously had little interest in Korean biotech are now showing interest, which is a particularly significant change."

However, this change in status does not immediately translate into new drug competitiveness. Lee Sanghoon, CEO of ABL Bio, whom we met at JPMHC, commented, "If Western big pharma had previously been actively seeking out China, this time there is a growing perception that 'Korea is next after China,'" but he also pointed out that the barriers of 'capital' and 'clinical sophistication' that Korea must overcome remain high.

Because Korean biotech companies still lack sufficient late-stage clinical data-large-scale clinical trials involving hundreds of participants, which are favored by big pharma-Korea is still often evaluated as being focused on 'early-stage technology.' In technology transfer deals, candidate substances in the preclinical to Phase 1 clinical stages are not highly valued.

CEO Lee said, "The ideal model is to generate revenue through technology transfer and use those funds to push clinical development further toward commercialization. Korean companies need to move from 'early-stage technology' to 'clinical and commercialized products' in order to strengthen their negotiating power with big pharma."

Korea's pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry has built its fundamentals and capabilities through CDMO (contract development and manufacturing organization) and biosimilar businesses, represented by companies like Samsung Biologics and Celltrion. Now, leveraging accumulated regulatory experience and capital, they must take on the risks of new drug development and prove themselves through clinical trials. The long line in front of Korea Night was just another starting signal for K-Bio. The real competition begins now.