Seoul aims to be a global power in biomedicine by 2030

A branch of medical science, it applies the principles of biology and natural sciences to clinical practice.  The government: "It will bring economic growth, new jobs and better health care".  Seoul will spend around US $ 3.34 billion by 2025 to promote its development.

 


Seoul (AsiaNews / Agencies) - South Korea has identified a series of measures to promote the biosanitary industry, with the goal of becoming a global power in the sector by 2030. Biomedicine is a branch of medical science that applies principles  of biology and natural sciences to clinical practice.  Three days ago, President Moon Jae-in (photo) illustrated his administration's project at a conference in Cheongju, in the northern province of Chungcheong.

In a statement, the government states that "the bio-health sector will not only lead to economic growth and the creation of new jobs, but also to an improvement in public health care".  "Our goal is to create an ecosystem that covers all stages of the process: from research, to approval, through production and up to the release of products," reads the release.

The biosanitary industry covers pharmaceutical goods and medical instruments, as well as health services.  Under the plan, the government will spend around 4 thousand billion won (3.34 billion US dollars) by 2025, to promote its development.  The allocated budget marks a strong increase compared to that of 2.6 trillion won assigned for 2017. According to Seoul, the massive support measures will help the country to improve knowledge and technologies for next-generation treatments, such as therapies targeted to certain types  of cancer with minimal side effects on patients.

In order to develop the biomedical sector, solutions will be applied for analytical data collection: the government intends to collect information on about 20 thousand patients until 2021, with the aim of bringing the figure to one million by 2029. A database of information on  patients, including genes, can help find a cure - especially for those suffering from genetic disorders - by using and comparing large-scale samples.

With the new measures, President Moon's government aims to create around 300,000 new jobs;  he also hopes that the bio-health sector can help South Korea to cope with the surge in demand for medical services, due to an aging population.  South Korea has become an "aged society" in 2017, when the percentage of people over 65 reached 14% of the approximately 50 million inhabitants.