President Yoon Suk-yeol has picked up the biotech industry as a future growth driver and is determined to support it. To this end, the government’s budget for biotech R&D for 2024 has been expanded by 12 percent. Starting from 2024, the government will launch large-scale R&D projects to develop vaccines and therapeutics among others including the Korean ARPA-H project, an innovative health and medical research system worth 1.93 trillion won, and the Boston-Korea project, to secure super-gap biotechnologies.
“We will promote strategic projects worth 2.5 trillion won to preempt future industrial ecosystems such as biotech and space,” President Yoon said while presiding over a cabinet meeting and explaining next year’s budget at the presidential office in Yongsan on Sept. 29.
“We will invest 1.8 trillion won in global R&D cooperation to secure world-class technologies, such as the Boston-Korea Project,” Yoon said. “We will invest 4.4 trillion won in four areas -- artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnology, cybersecurity, and a digital platform government.”
Accordingly, large-scale biotech projects will begin in 2024. The biotech-digital health R&D budget will reach 780.1 billion won, an increase of 12 percent (83.4 billion won) from 69.7 billion won this year.
Of that amount, 49.5 billion won will be used to launch a Korean-type ArpaHealth project. The project supports costly, challenging, and high-impact innovative research to address national health challenges. From 2024 to 2033, 1.9314 trillion won – 1.8834 trillion won from the government and 48 billion won from the private sector – will be invested. It will invest in five core mission areas that urgently need to be addressed – establishing health security; overcoming unconquered diseases; biotech and health innovation; improving welfare and care; and expanding essential medical and care services. It will target the research and development of vaccines such as 90 percent accuracy in the early detection of cancer.
A full 60.4 billion won will be used to promote the Boston-Korea Project in collaboration with leading global organizations. The project’s goal is to secure super-gap biotechnologies. In addition, 12.9 billion won will go to boosting the competitiveness of the Korean vaccine raw materials market, up 5 billion won from the previous year. To help Korean pharmaceutical companies with innovative technologies go global, 7.7 billion won will be invested to build an accelerator platform.
A 500 billion won K-Bio vaccine fund will also be established. The Ministry of Health and Welfare will invest 100 billion won, three state-owned banks will invest 100 billion won, and private funds will be attracted to rev up the Korean biotech industry.
The BioHealth Innovation Committee, a government control tower for the Korean biotech and health sectors, will also be launched as early as September. The innovation committee, which will be chaired by the prime minister, is being established in line with Yoon’s pledge to create an inter-ministerial organization aimed at fostering the Korean pharmaceutical and biotech industries. The committee will include the Prime Minister, 12 ministers from various ministries such as the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and 17 civilian members.