President of Latvia visits S.Korea's Daan Cancer Lab

Daan Cancer Laboratory under Severance Hospital said on Thursday it signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Latvian government to strengthen cooperation in clinical research.

Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs, who is on a four-day working visit to South Korea from Wednesday to Saturday, visited the Sinchon Yonsei Severance Heavy Ion Therapy Center to sign the MOU.

Dr. Cho Byung-chul, Director of the laboratory, emphasized the importance of the bio industry, stating that the economic effect of the domestic cancer drug Leclaza, which has become a global anticancer drug, reaches 837.4 billion won ($600 million) annually.

Dr. Cho led the clinical development of Leclaza, a lung cancer treatment developed by Yuhan Corp. and licensed out to Janssen.

President Rinkēvičs is the first to visit a private bio-research institute in South Korea.

Founded in 2008, Daan Cancer Laboratory has grown into the largest nonprofit research institute in South Korea, employing over 100 people.

It has built around 500 precision models, including cancer cell lines derived from patient cancer cells, and has secured various research projects from domestic and foreign pharmaceutical companies.

The total research funding secured this year has exceeded 40 billion won.

Write to Woo-Sang Lee at idol@hankyung.com