South Korea‘s first centralized institutional review board kicked off operations Friday, amid hopes it would expedite the review of drugs and treatments used to treat serious conditions, including COVID-19. An institutional review board, or IRB, is a constituted group designated to review and monitor biomedical research involving human subjects. Many hospitals, universities and other medical institutions in South Korea have their own IRB, but there was no state-authorized central IRB. &l

Kim Beom-su, the founder of the company behind South Korea’s most popular messaging app KakaoTalk, is now the richest person in the country, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index on Friday. Kim has seen his fortune reach $13.4 billion this year, surpassing Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman and de-facto leader Lee Jae-yong, whose net worth was estimated at $12.1 billion. Kim’s assets grew by $6 billion in 2021 alone as Kakao shares soared 91 percent, boosted by the stock m

LG Electronics outstrips US Whirlpool in H1 sales, lures global customers with innovative, convenient home solutions

Touts continued tech prowess in memory field; says will make ’meaningful‘ M&A deal in 3 years

SES pictures joint ventures with lithium-ion battery giants for its own good and their survival

Mobile carriers, government regulators urged to strengthen filtering system to better protect children from harmful content amid privacy dispute

South Korean companies operating in virus-stricken Southeast Asian countries have asked for the government’s help in procuring COVID-19 vaccines for its workers there, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy said Wednesday. They also called for relaxed quarantine requirements on inbound business travel to Korea at a recent online meeting with ministry officials. The meeting was organized as a number of Southeast Asian countries are reporting explosive surges in infections driven by

iPhones could be made available for purchase at LG Best Shops across South Korea as early as next month, after LG Electronics cleared a key hurdle – opposition from small phone distributors. The Korea Commission for Corporate Partnership, a private consensus-based body promoting shared growth between big and small businesses, said Wednesday that LG Electronics has reached a new agreement with the Korea Mobile Distribution Association, representing the phone distributors, regarding its i

Experts warn semiconductor scarcity will persist as chipmakers build new plants

Samsung Biologics, a biopharmaceutical unit of South Korea‘s top conglomerate Samsung Group, posted all-time high earnings for the second quarter, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday. The company’s sales in the April-June period reached 412.2 billion won ($357.1 million), up 34 percent from a year earlier. Operating profit soared 106 percent on-year to reach 166.8 billion won during the same period. Samsung Biologics said the improved earnings were backed by new contra

Factory workers at Samsung Electronics, Hyundai Motor, SK hynix and other major manufacturers in South Korea began getting their vaccine shots on Tuesday, the health authorities said. They are part of the 303,159 workers from 43 large companies that operate large production facilities here and have in-house clinics, covered by the country’s first factory vaccine rollout program, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. The shots to be injected have changed from Mod

SK hynix, the world’s second-largest memory provider, surpassed the 10 trillion-won ($8.69 billion) mark in quarterly sales for the first time in three years amid a continuing chip boom. According to the chipmaker’s earnings announcement Tuesday, the company recorded 10.3 trillion won in sales in the April-June period, up 20 percent from the same period last year, owing to the improved conditions in the memory market since early this year. The chipmaker last breached the 10 trill

Samsung Electronics will take the lead in widening the foldable smartphone market by offering more refined and durable products this year, the company‘s executive in charge of the mobile phone business said Tuesday. Roh Tae-moon, president of Samsung Mobile, pledged to provide improved foldable devices at the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Unpacked event slated for Aug. 11 through a message posted on the company’s newsroom homepage. “The upcoming Galaxy Z Fold combines the very be

Samsung Electronics Co. said Tuesday its new curved gaming monitor with Mini LED display will be launched this week. The Odyssey Neo G9 will hit the shelves in South Korea on Thursday with a price of 2.4 million won ($2,085). It will be globally available by Aug. 9, according to the tech giant. The latest product is the industry's first curved gaming monitor with Mini LED display, Samsung said. It uses the Quantum Mini LED light source that is 1/40 the height of a conventional LED, which is al

The mix of digital assets and metaverse ecosystem infuses energy into fledgling blockchain marketplace based on nonfungible tokens