S.Korea to bolster biotech R&D, benchmarking US' Boston

South Korea is poised to boost the biotech industry by accelerating research, education and business partnerships with the biopharmaceutical sector in Boston, Massachusetts. Korea will also follow the US city's model to expand bio clusters to attract more global companies, institutes and universities, the science and technology ministry said on Thursday.     

The ministry announced plans to foster global clusters for advanced technologies during an export strategy meeting presided over by President Yoon Suk Yeol on June 1.

The government will set up policies to boost markets and make preemptive investments to increase capital injections in the private sector, Yoon added.

"Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has attracted the brightest talent in the engineering, medical, law and finance sectors based on systems of free market and fair compensation. It spurs collaboration of talent and development of global top technologies, which has made the US the most powerful nation in the world,” the president said.

Yoon added Korea’s high-tech industries need to benchmark themselves against Boston’s biotech hub, which he visited during his trip to the US at the end of April.

The Korean authorities plan to collaborate with MIT by exchanging biotech professionals and conducting R&D of new drugs. It will also foster the digital healthcare sector by establishing a platform that shares big data on health and medicine with private companies

EXPAND BENEFITS

Asia's fourth-largest economy plans to nurture clusters for national strategic technologies in 12 sectors -- biopharmaceuticals, semiconductors and display, batteries, aerospace and marine, advanced vehicles, nuclear, cyber security, artificial intelligence, robotics and quantum.

The country will add biopharmaceutical technologies, such as culturing and purifying animal cells, to the strategic tech list by September of this year. Also, it will expand the scope of business by creating bio clusters -- in sectors such as law, accounting, startup accelerators and venture capital firms -- that will create synergy with the high-tech industries.

In addition, the authorities will increase tax advantages to the companies in the clusters. For example, if a firm acquires a small-and-mid-sized enterprise that is acknowledged as an innovative tech firm by the government, there will be a tax credit of 10% the targeted firm’s tech value.

The government will provide financial benefits to some overseas talent and companies. For example, it will reduce by half the income tax of foreign university professors in the sector clusters for 10 years; a foreign-invested company can receive subsidies equivalent to up to 50% their direct investments in Korea’s advanced technologies, material, components and equipment developers and manufacturers.  

Write to Sang-Yong Park, Hyeong-Ju Oh and Jeong Min Nam at yourpencil@hankyung.com

Jihyun Kim edited this article.