South Korea has a tremendous amount of growth potential in the life sciences industry with its strong Korean governmental support, highly educated personnel, growing infrastructure and burgeoning innovation from the academic and private sectors. 


EMERGENCE OF KOREA:
Korea has emerged in recent years as one of the prime investment locations in the Asia Pacific region. Its strong economic growth, increasingly favorable business environment, and rapid transformation into a truly knowledge-based information society have contributed to the creation of a wealth of investment opportunities.

Northeast Asia is the new focus of the global economy, accounting for 24 percent of world population, 19 percent of global production and 13 percent of international trade. Korea is favorably located at the center of this region. Korea’s geographical location constitutes an outstanding advantage for Korean and locally based foreign companies to serve prime East Asian markets such as China, Japan and the ASEAN countries, which together account for 31 percent of global demand.

As of year-end 2005, more than half of the Fortune Global 500 list of companies had established a foothold in Korea, making investments in almost 1000 domestic companies. To fulfill their globalization objectives, major multinational corporations also recognize Korea as an ideal destination for their production, logistics and R&D bases across all sectors. 

BIOTECHNOLOGY IN KOREA:
Burrill & Company is one of the world leaders in the life sciences investments. With our foresight, we believe Korea has one of the strongest growth potentials in the technology sector. With strong support from the Korean government, Korea’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry has been rapidly growing from $1.2billion in 2000 to $2.7 billion in 2005 representing an 18% of annual growth rate. The Korean Government formulated Bio-Vision 2016 in November 2006 to acquire competitive source technologies and expand industrial infrastructure over the next 10 years. As the future growth engine industry, the Korean market of biotechnology industry will develop to $6.5 billion in 2010.

Currently, there are hundreds of companies that make up Korea's biotechnology industry, and more than half are located in the capital area of Seoul. The industry, however, is moving toward geographic diversification thanks to government policies that nurture bio-clusters throughout the country. Domestic biotechnology firms focus on the bio-pharma and bio-foods. The medical sector accounts for about 47% of Korea's biotechnology industry. Major products which are being actively developed include hepatitis vaccines, antibiotics, amino acids, particularly lysine, and more recently, post-genomics related products.

In line with global trends, Korea's biotechnology is strengthening its R&D capacity in genomics, proteomics, and bioinformatics. There are also new researches being done in bio-products through the incorporation of cutting-edge technologies. The annual average investment has increased at a hefty rate of 23%, which shows the strong will of the Korean government to promote the biotechnology sector.

Scientific quality of Korean biotechnology is confirmed from outstanding infrastructures through increasing innovative researchers, paper publications and patent registration. In addition, the incidence of aging and adult disease brings about increase of healthcare expenditures. Recently in Korea the number of clinical trials for new drug development is growing with the world-class medical doctors/hospitals and advanced IT infrastructure. The Korean government is focusing on the innovation of a national biotechnology promotion policy, and participating and accelerating the globalization of bioindustry.

BURRILL KOREA GROUP:
Burrill & Company has formed the Burrill Korea group to leverage our expertise and knowledge in the life sciences to work with the Korean government, biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Through direct investments, Burrill & Company hopes to help maximize the growth and progress in the healthcare and life sciences industries in South Korea for the world.

CONTACT INFORMATION:
H. Michael Keyoung, M.D, Ph.D.
Director
Korea Direct: 010-4940-8255
Email: mkeyoung@b-c.com