“Need to increase support for new AI drugs in Korea”

Due to the wide difference in investments and manpower in Korea and the global industry

Wooyeon Kim, Head of the AI ​​New Drug Development Support Center, stressed so at the KPBMA’s AI Innovation Forum

Chinese company makes an investment of KRW 500 billion and sees success...Stressed the need to accumulate success cases with an emphasis on human resources development

“Although artificial intelligence (AI) new drug development ecosystem is being created in Korea, there are still many areas that we are lacking at a global level in terms of manpower or investment scale.

 

Chinese companies that were established around the same time received more than KRW 500 billion in investments, while Korean companies only received KRW 87.8 billion, which delayed their growth.

 

It's time to make efforts to expand this ecosystem while building success stories through step-by-step collaboration.” Wooyeon Kim, Head of Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association (KPBMA)’s AI ​​New Drug Development Support Center stressed so at the ‘Pharmaceutical-Bio AI Innovation Forum’ that was held at Lotte Hotel Seoul in Sogong-dong on the 19th.

 

Wooyeon Kim, Head of the AI ​​New Drug Development Support Center

At the event, which was hosted by KPBMA, Kim explained that Korea’s AI drug development market has grown steadily over the past 5 years, forming a virtuous cycle ecosystem.

 

Companies and research centers are actively collaborating with AI new drug development companies.

 

There were 88 cases of such collaborative efforts being made for drug repositioning, target discovery, and candidate substance discovery including partnerships between ▲ Boryung Pharmaceutical - Oncocross ▲ Samsung Seoul Medical Center - NetTargets ▲ Dong-A ST - Pharos iBio, etc.

 

The government has also been continuing its efforts.

 

Ministry of Science and ICT has been investing a total of KRW 18 billion for the discovery of innovative new drugs using AI for 5 years since 2022.

 

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is also planning to build a Korean-style Rosetta Fold (an AI-applied protein structure prediction and analysis platform) next year and promote technology matching between pharmaceutical companies and AI companies.

 

In addition, supports for projects such as medical big data construction and AI-based new drug development education are also being carried out.

 

However, Korean AI drug development companies are still experiencing difficulties in securing talent and attracting investment.

 

The stark difference stands out when compared to the global environment.

 

Kim cited the cases of Standigm, a Korean company, and XtalPi, a Chinese company.

 

Although the two companies were founded at a similar foundation time and owned similar levels of technology.

 

However, Standigm had received KRW 87.8 billion in investments while XtalPi attracted 6 times as much, which was KRW 533.8 billion.

 

XtalPi has 700 professionals, which is 10 times more than the 54 experts at Standigm.

 

On this, Kim said, “Although the two companies were established at a similar period, XtalPi has achieved far much on the global stage due to its overwhelming investment and manpower over Standigm.

 

In this graph that shows the growth rate of each company, XtalPi has shown faster growth.” In order to revitalize the ecosystem, Kim saw the need to accumulate successful collaboration cases in each stage of development, and encouraged research on matching supply and demand in the area.

 

"There should be more cases that show companies that drug development can be accelerated and efficiency increased through the use of AI in the industry." Kim added, "This difference is more due to the difference in investment and manpower rather than technology.

 

Although the AI drug development ecosystem in Korea has grown considerably, we are still lacking in many, many areas.” Kim also asked for the government’s closer attention in the field as global competition is taking place.

 

He said, "A lot of investment is being made, mainly in the US and China, for the development of new AI drugs.

 

Korea should also make bold investments and accumulate results step by step." Kim stressed that Korea should also strive to nurture convergent talents that understand AI.

 

Kim said, "Demand for talent training is very high.

 

More than 3,800 people attended the 385 hours of lectures that were conducted at our center.

 

In particular, as convergence is very important in this field, we need to establish a system that continues to nurture convergent talent."