Government support for the next Leclaza discovery continues

MOHW continues collaboration with MSS… plan to be finalized in June–July

Support for startups from universities, hospitals, and research institutes… full-cycle support from scale-up to global commercialization

Follow-up to President Jae-myung Lee’s ‘Startup Nation’ initiative

Kang-seop Lim, Director of the Pharmaceutical Bio Industry Division, MOHW

“A new drug candidate from the biotech venture Genosco was licensed out to Johnson & Johnson in the U.S. via the mid-sized pharmaceutical company Yuhan Corporation, leading to the creation of Leclaza. This is a prime example of a successful pharmaceutical and biotech startup from Korea. We plan to continue pushing forward with government policies this year to provide full support until the end, ensuring that more startup models emerge, with policies that support the commercialization of such early-stage discoveries.”

The Ministry of Health and Welfare is unveiling a specialized startup fostering roadmap for the pharmaceutical and biotech sector for the first time in history, aiming to create domestic blockbuster drugs like a “second Leclaza” from the venture stage.

The plan will provide full-cycle support to ensure promising drug candidates are not lost, linking technologies from universities, hospitals, and research institutes to startups, scaling them up, and supporting global expansion.

On the 3rd, Kang-seop Lim, Director of the Pharmaceutical Bio Industry Division, stated that a startup support plan will be developed jointly with the Ministry of SMEs and Startups (MSS) and announced by June or July.

With the newly established division within MOHW and Director Lim dedicating his full efforts as its first head, there is a growing momentum to develop multifaceted policies for the promotion of the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry.

This initiative follows President Jae-myung Lee’s ‘Startup Nation’ strategy announced in January.

At that time, President Lee instructed all government ministries to build a startup ecosystem where anyone, including young people, regional entrepreneurs, and deep-tech startups, can pursue entrepreneurship.

The MOHW is joining forces with the MSS on the plan, following their earlier announcement of collaborative measures for pharmaceutical and biotech industry policies.

This amounts to establishing specific policy measures to promote and foster startups in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry, with the revitalization of startups in this sector serving as the policy goal and overarching framework.

Director Lim pointed to research institutes within universities, medical institution research centers, including those in university hospitals, and government-funded research institutes as the specific targets of this policy.

This administrative initiative aims to increase the number of cases where new drug candidates currently being researched by professors, doctors, and scholars are brought to the forefront through government-supported startups, commercialized and productized through processes such as licensing out, and then expanded beyond the domestic market into the global market.

Director Lim cited Leclaza as a representative example. He explained that this is a policy in which the MOHW and MSS joined forces to ensure that a highly marketable domestic new drug, capable of succeeding in both domestic and overseas markets, was developed through the Genosco-Yuhan Corporation-Johnson & Johnson track.

Director Lim stated, “Lecraza is a representative success case in which an early-stage drug candidate developed by Genosco was licensed by the mid-sized pharmaceutical company Yuhan, and later out-licensed to Johnson & Johnson for commercialization in overseas markets. This is a prime example of a successful pharmaceutical and biotech startup, and the government plans to support more cases like this.”

He added, “In Korea, pharma-biotech startups typically emerge through several routes, including ventures founded by professors and researchers in university labs, physicians in hospitals, and researchers at government-funded institutes. A significant number of new drug candidates are likely to originate at the researcher or academic stage. The policy focus is on how the government can support these efforts when they transition into pharma-biotech startups.”

Lim continued, “Given the limited size of the domestic market, global expansion is inevitable. We will support pharma-biotech startups not only in scaling up after their establishment, but also through to global expansion and commercialization.”

He further stated, “This is the first time the Ministry of Health and Welfare has introduced a policy specifically targeting pharma-biotech venture startups. While we are still working through the details and identifying actionable support measures, we plan to finalize and announce the startup support plan by July. Ultimately, our goal is to establish a Ministry of Health and Welfare policy that identifies and supports startups that will serve as the seeds for large-scale innovative drug development.”