The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at hwdoh@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Along with its 4Q20 results, TSMC’s 2021 investment plan significantly exceeded market expectations. We expect the global non-memory semiconductor equipment industry to benefit.TSMC forecasts 2021 cap
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at kyeongkeun.kang@nhqv.com. -- Ed. Rising 3-in-1 board adoption by Solu-M’s main client should drive earnings growth at the power division. The firm has secured mid/long-term growth engines in the expanding global ESL market
The Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization said on Jan. 12 that Korea’s exports of biotech and health products surged by over 50 percent on year in 2020 despite COVID-19.Korea's exports in the bio-health sector amounted to 15.25 trillion won (US$14.1 billion) in 2020, according to the 2020 Ex
Syntekabio, an AI and NGS-based drug development company, announced on Jan. 14 that it has signed multiple co-development agreements with Hanmi Science to develop COVID-19 treatments utilizing drug repositioning technologies.The two companies signed an MOU in September 2020 to develop COVID-19 drug
Foreign direct investment (FDI) in Korea shrank by more than 11 percent in 2020 due to COVID-19, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said on Jan. 12.FDI has sunken by a double-digit figure for two consecutive years after reaching an all-time high in 2018.The ministry said FDI in Korea reached
Hanmi Pharmaceutical has disclosed its COVID-19 response roadmap at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, which is held online from Jan. 11-14.The annual conference is the world's largest pharmaceutical and biotech investment conference that brings together healthcare industry leaders, fast-growi
The Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) announced on Jan. 11 that its AI chip, digital holographic display and sound field security sensor technologies would be exhibited at CES 2021.The AI chip technology is a chip development technology optimized for complex arithmetic pro
The Biotech Policy Research Center announced on Jan. 7 that the global stem cell market is expected to grow from US$16.2 billion in 2021 to US$23.9 billion in 2025 and the global stem cell therapeutics market is expected to show an average annual growth of 16.5 percent from US$2.4 billion during the
The authors are analysts of Shinhan Investment Corp. They can be reached at shawn1225@shinhan.com and jhwon@shinhan.com, respectively. – Ed. Pharma/bio tend to outperform broader markets from the start of the yearPharmaceutical/bio stocks usually outperform the broader markets from the start of the
The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy announced on Jan. 1 that South Korea’s exports totaled US$51.41 billion last month, up 12.6 percent from a year ago. The figure, which is the highest December figure, exceeded US$50 billion for the first time since November 2018.Last year, South Korea’s exp
As the introduction of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine to Korea has become more visible, attention is being paid to which companies will produce the vaccine.The Korean government says that there has not been any concrete discussion about the issue yet. However, Modena CEO Stephane Bancel mentioned th
Technology exports by Korean pharmaceutical and biotech companies reached 11.8 trillion won in 2020, up 39 percent from 8.5 trillion won in 2019.This year, 10 companies concluded 15 technology export deals. Compared to 2019, the number of companies dropped by two, but the number of contracts increas
The Korea Intellectual Property Protection Agency announced on Dec. 28 that non-practicing entities (NPEs) filed 107 suits against South Korean enterprises in the United States for the first 10 months of this year whereas the yearly total was 94 in 2019.According to experts, this is because of expan
SK Telecom (SKT) has launched the first 5G edge cloud service in Korea, in collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS).Using AWS Wavelength at the edge of the 5G multi-access edge computing (MEC) networks, the new service, dubbed SKT 5GX Edge, enables customers to build mobile applications that req
The author is an analyst of KB Securities. He can be reached at joonsop.analyst@kbfg.com. -- Ed. LG Uplus to begin winding down 2G services — On Dec 23, the Korea Economic Daily reported that LG Uplus plans to announce it would terminate 2G services and release measures to protect existing subscribe
The Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology announced on Dec. 22 that its research team led by Dr. Kwon Ki-seon confirmed a correlation between senile sarcopenia and a decrease in muscle cell membrane fluidity.At present, senile sarcopenia is regarded as being due to various interre
The author is an analyst of NH Investment & Securities. He can be reached at ys.hwang@nhqv.com. -- Ed. In order to reduce demand for petroleum-based plastics that result in environmental harm (eg, in the form of excess waste and global warming), ‘white bio’ revitalization policy is being promoted. F
SK Holdings will enter the bio-medicine contract manufacturing organization (CMO) business in earnest by acquiring a French CMO company.SK Pharmteco, SK Holdings’ CMO subsidiary is in negotiations to acquire Yposkesi, a French gene and cell therapy CMO company. Yposkesi is known to have platform tec
The South Korean government has designated system-on-chip package assembly and inspection, 5G system design and in-vitro diagnosis as new national core technologies. Exporting those technologies and international M&As of companies that have those technologies now require government permission or rep
The author is president & head of Mobile Communications Business, Samsung Electronics. -- Ed. Ever since I was young, I’ve been captivated by engineering and technology — enthralled by new gadgets and curious about what made them work. I didn’t think I could be more obsessed with technology, but 202