SK Pharmteco, a consolidated global pharmaceuticals manufacturing chain of SK Group, will provide US-based Phlow with pharmaceutical ingredients to offset supply shortfall in the country, SK Holdings announced Wednesday. The Donald Trump administration has announced it will buttress the project with $812 million funding over the next 10 years. SK Holdings owns US’ Ampac Fine Chemicals and more ...

Over 20 Korean biologics firms are revving up their engines to go public in 2020. DreamCIS, Psomagen, SCM Lifescience, Kainos Medicine and SK Biopharmaceuticals are set to list on main bourse Kospi and secondary Kosdaq before July. Market watchers are also keeping their eyes on HK inno.N Corp. (formerly CJ Healthcare), GI Innovation and Vuno. All in all, counting the firms who have requested sto...

Bioneer, a molecular diagnostic kit and analytics reader machine maker, said Wednesday it has signed an agreement with Indonesia’s Genomik Solidaritas to supply COVID-19 test kit readers worth 6.8 billion won ($5.5 million). As per the deal, Bioneer will deliver 25 sets of ExiStation 48, including nucleic acid diagnostic agent and real-time polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 test kits. Nine Exi...

The opening keynote for this year’s IFA will be delivered by Cristiano Amon, the president of Qualcomm. Amon will touch upon the topic of new normal after COVID-19 and the future of mobile connectivity. Furthermore, at IFA 2020, there will be four parallel but stand-alone events: the IFA Global Press Conference for brands’ keynotes and press conferences; the sourcing show IFA Global Markets; th...

Major tectonic shifts were noticed in the rankings of top 10 South Korean biologics and pharmaceutical firms in the first quarter this year, according to latest data Tuesday. Almost every company had their placements readjusted based on their first-quarter earnings reports. Celltrion soared to the top with revenue of 372.8 billion won ($304 million) from last year’s seventh spot at 221.7 billio...

Samsung Biologics, the world’s largest contract development and contract manufacturing organization for biologics drugs, said Tuesday that its third plant complies with international standards for business continuity management systems. The plant is certified for compliance with ISO22301, a global standard set by the British Standard Institution, meaning the company’s business operations would e...

GC Pharma said Monday that it would give out its blood plasma-derived COVID-19 treatment for free to domestic patients. The company’s pipeline, GC5131A, is currently under development and mass distribution is due in the second half of 2020. Huh Eun-chul, the CEO of GC Pharma, wrote to shareholders requesting their understanding over the company’s decision to put long-term health care stability ...

Korean biotech firm Genexine’s COVID-19 deoxyribonucleic acid vaccine pipeline GX-19 is ready for clinical testing, as soon as it applies to the Drug Ministry for human testing. Binex, which is part of the consortium that developed the drug, said Monday that it has completed manufacturing the supply enough for a clinical phase 1 trials of the drug. GX-19 is a potential COVID-19 vaccine develope...

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is doling out a series of funding for epidemic countermeasure research in Korea. SK Bioscience, a vaccine researcher and developer firm, said Monday that it has nabbed $3.6 million financial backing from the US foundation for to research the biologic structure of an optimal antigen for epidemics. This comes a day after the announcement of some $9.7 million fundin...

Korean telecommunications firm KT will research for epidemic preparedness solutions, backed with 12 billion won ($9.7 million) in funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. KT said Sunday that the philanthropic foundation had wished for an epidemics monitoring study carried out in Korea -- a country of widespread smartphone penetration equipped with 5G infrastructure. The research, calle...

“I’ve been told about the possible adverse reactions of finasteride, but I still take it because I know the percentage of men who become impotent are only a fraction,” said Kang Si-hoon, a 33-year-old office worker who has taken a finasteride generic for close to three years. “It is best to begin taking the drug at the first signs of hair loss, to prevent any further shedding.” While the FDA iss...

South Korea’s Hanmi Pharmaceutical may consider legal action against global biopharma Sanofi, as the French company abruptly decided to halt participation in further research on efpeglenatide, a potential treatment for Type 2 diabetes. The two have been jointly developing efpeglenatide, discovered by Hanmi. The Korean pharma issued a notice to shareholders Thursday, saying there were still 120...

Real-time polymerase chain reaction COVID-19 detection test kit maker Seegene saw a whopping 600 percent jump in its consolidated operating profit and net profit in the first quarter of 2020, according to company filings Thursday. Seegene rose from being one of many molecular diagnosis companies to a globally acknowledged high-profile firm after it became one of the first to produce a real-tim...

Some of the topics that will be discussed in this year’s Bio Korea 2020 include electroceuticals for central nervous diseases, growing role of artificial intelligence in healthcare, Alzheimer’s disease, doctopreneurs and intellectual property rights of biosimilars, among others. Over 390 companies will present their promotional videos at their virtual booths. Some 90 speakers will deliver presen...

Optimistic timelines regarding the pharmaceutical race to produce a drug for COVID-19 have been met with skepticism, but even doubters do not deny that a vaccine or a treatment is desperately needed. “There can never be a complete (economic) recovery unless a working vaccine is developed and distributed,” said Chung Chul, senior vice president and acting president of the Korea Institute for Inte...