South Korea’s leading cosmetics firm Amorepacific aims to beef up its presence in the global market through wider investment in research, the firm said Monday.

Between 1997 and 2016, the firm increased its research and development spending from 17.9 billion won ($15.7 million) to 119 billion won.

“The R&D spending of the company is expected to increase again in 2017 as it did in previous years,” Amorepacific’s spokesperson said.

Amorepacific was the first cosmetics firm to open a R&D office here in 1954. In 1992, Amorepacific also built its first research center in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, and expanded the institute by adding a second research center, Mizium, in the area in 2010. 

Through the two R&D centers, Amorepacific invented its signature products. Starting with ABC Ginseng Cream in 1966, Amorepacific grew its own luxurious product line using herbal medicine and advanced skin science.

The ABC Ginseng Cream set the foundation for Amorepacific to later develop its Sulwhasoo brand, which last year posted around 40 percent on-year revenue growth with sales of 2 trillion won.

In 2015, Amorepacific opened its Asian Beauty Laboratory to boost its cosmetics research and provide optimized solutions for customers in Asia.

In January this year, Amorepacific also opened its own research institute at Singapore’s Biopolis, an international research center of the state-run Agency for Science, Technology Research or A*STAR.

Through collaborative research with the Singapore Bioimaging Consortium, a major bioimaging institute supported by A*STAR, Amorepacific plans to focus on biomarkers to take its skin aging research to the next level, the company said.

By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)