Eyeing new partnerships and foreign investments, South Korea’s leading pharmaceutical companies are participating in the 34th JP Morgan Healthcare Conference which kicks off Monday in San Francisco.

The annual U.S.-based event, set to continue until Thursday, is one of the largest and oldest health care symposiums in the world.

Each year, more than 300 companies have flocked to the conference hosted by the investment bank, on the lookout for biotech and pharma companies primed for major breakthroughs and seeking to get up-to-date with emerging industry trends.

Global drugmakers will be searching for new assets to add to their pipelines while discussing potential partnerships and opportunities to strengthen their businesses.

At the industry’s biggest gathering of the year, a sizeable number of deals are reportedly negotiated and finalized before the conference comes to a close.

This year’s conference is drawing particularly high attention locally, as Hanmi Pharmaceutical was able to seal a mega licensing deal with Sanofi on a set of experimental diabetes treatments, the “Quantum Project,” in 2015 after presenting its effects at the symposium last year.

Hanmi Pharma CEO Lee Kwan-soon, who is partaking in the conference for the fifth consecutive year, will once again introduce the company’s new drug pipelines to global investors as well as underscore the company’s core achievements in 2015.

Alongside Hanmi, leading local drug developers including Green Cross, Dong-A ST, Celltrion, Samsung BioLogics, Samsung Bioepis and Yuhan Corp., among others, have been invited to the conference to introduce their new treatments and latest R&D.

Green Cross Holdings president Rhee Byung-geon is planning to highlight the efficacy of the company’s self-developed intravenous immunoglobulin IVIG-SN, a plasma-based biologic drug which is currently awaiting final approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The CEOs of Samsung’ two biotech affiliates will also be partaking in the health care symposium, while the R&D directors of Dong-A ST and Yuhan Corp. will be on the lookout for the latest industry developments during the four-day event.

JPMorgan said it expects to draw roughly 9,000 participants at this year’s conference with presentations from more than 400 biotech, pharmaceutical, medical device and other health care companies.

By Sohn Ji-young and news reports (jys@heraldcorp.com)