Philips Korea has received the Health and Welfare Minister’s Award at the 2022 Happiness Together Social Contribution Campaign for helping improve people’s lives through health care technology, the company said Thursday. Marking its 12th edition, the annual awards recognizes exemplary companies that practice social responsibilities. Co-hosted by the Korea Enterprises Federation and the Association of Korean Journalists, the campaign is sponsored by several ministries including the

South Korea has approved the use of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Wednesday, amid growing concerns over sharply soaring infections ahead of schools' opening next week. The country reported a record high of over 170,000 daily cases of COVID-19 from the previous day. Of the new cases reported in the last week, almost 30 percent were found in children aged 18 or younger, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Age

The year 2021 was monumental for South Korea’s pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries, as they set a number of records. The country rolled out four new drugs, the most in a year since the first domestically-developed new drug came to light in 1999. Companies also licensed out technologies worth 13 trillion won ($10.9 billion) and exported drugs worth over 10 trillion won. Big firms such as Samsung Biologics, SK bioscience and Celltrion are taking the lead in making the country&r

South Korean IT giant Naver’s webtoon business is continuing its dominance in the global market, getting recognized as the world’s best webtoon application while posting a record high number of users. Naver Webtoon has been honored as the world’s best webtoon application in the mobile app market by analyzer Sensor Tower’s 2021 Asia-Pacific Awards, the company said Friday. Sensor Tower said Naver Webtoon is the most successful webtoon application in Asia, adding that i

Touted as the next big thing, the metaverse has been undeniably the talk of the global town since last year. The metaverse frenzy accelerated further when Facebook changed its name to Meta in October. Hoping to take the lead in the new online virtual world, all sectors regardless of their specializations have jumped on the metaverse bandwagon. This has led to lofty projections luring individual investors. The global metaverse market is forecast to reach $829 billion (993 trillion won) in 202

The auction for an additional 5G spectrum band, which was slated to take place sometime this month, will be delayed over the remaining differences between the country’s three largest telecommunication companies, officials said Thursday. Earlier in the day, the Science and ICT minister and CEOs of SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus met at the Seoul Central Post Office to discuss the ongoing dispute of the 5G spectrum auction, but failed to come to a conclusion. After the meeting, Hwang Hyun-si

Philip Morris Korea has implemented a new parental leave policy to support all forms of families raising children including adoptive parents and legal guardians, the company said Wednesday. Under the company’s parental policy, which became effective last month, employees can take up to 126 days of paid parental leave if they are primary caregivers. The company allows up to 56 days of paid parental leave for secondary caregivers. According to the company, a primary caregiver is the perso

SK Bioscience has signed a $31 million (37 billion won) order to ship out its chickenpox vaccine Sky Varicella to the Pan American Health Organization, the company said Monday. The PAHO, along with the UNICEF, has one of the largest demand for vaccines in the world as it is responsible for supplying mass-scale vaccines on behalf of countries in the central and southern American regions. According to SK Bioscience, the order marked the first time the company succeeded in winning a bid with PAHO

Kakao leaders are struggling to restore the platform giant’s brand image and win back the trust of investors after the company’s friendly reputation took a huge hit over a series of mishaps. “Looking back on the path that Kakao has walked on over the past four years, Kakao has achieved rapid growth with the support of the entire nation. But in the process, we have suffered growing pains and lost the society’s trust so I feel heavily responsible for it,” Yeo Min-so

Smilegate has launched first-person shooting game CrossfireX for next-generation consoles, the company said Thursday. Smilegate said the launch signals the beginning of the company’s plan to target the global console market and solidify its position as South Korea’s representative powerhouse for intellectual property. CrossfireX became available on Xbox One as well as Xbox Series S and X as of 9 a.m. Korea time on Thursday. The video game is provided in nine languages for the tex

LG’s future mobility concept car the LG Omnipod on Thursday made its offline debut at a technology conference organized by Kakao Mobility in Seoul. LG Omnipod, which was first presented in a video at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last month, is a concept model of futuristic vehicles that can reconstruct the passengers’ space for various purposes. With the modular in-vehicle appliances and adaptive interior, LG Omnipod can be an office or personal space where users can

SK Bioscience rolled out the first batch of Nuvaxovid, Novavax’s synthetic antigen-based COVID-19 vaccine, the company said Wednesday. On top of the 840,000 doses that were rolled out on Wednesday, SK Bioscience said it plans to supply a total of 2 million doses by the end of this month. The shipment follows the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s approval of the vaccine last month. In December, SK Bioscience signed a contract with the US bio firm to secure the manufacturing and s

The recent surge in the number of COVID-19 cases has increased the demand for self-test kits, and is causing alarm as there are signs of another supply shortage reminiscent of the mask scarcity seen two years ago. Sales of self-test kits at convenience stores have soared since Jan. 26 when the country’s daily confirmed cases broke 10,000 for the first time. Some stores quickly ran out of stock as the supply could not keep up. A similar pattern has been seen at pharmacies. “Since

Samsung Biologics has won the 2022 CMO Leadership Awards in all six performance categories of capabilities, compatibility, expertise, reliability, quality and service, the company said Tuesday. The awards, presented by Life Science Leader, Outsourced Pharma and Industry Standard Research, recognize the world’s top contract manufacturing organizations based on ratings and feedback from companies that utilize outsourcing services. The latest recognition marked the ninth consecutive year

SK Bioscience saw record sales of 929 billion won ($774 million) and operating profits of 474 billion won from last year, on the back of strong businesses in its contract manufacturing of the AstraZeneca and Novavax COVID-19 vaccines, the company said Monday. Compared to 2020 yearly figures, SK Bioscience’s annual sales and operating profits went up by 311 percent and 1,158 percent, respectively. About half of the annual numbers came in the fourth quarter alone as the company logged 451

Celltrion has confirmed the safety of its inhalable antibody treatment for COVID-19 in a phase one clinical trial in Australia, the pharmaceutical company said Monday. Celltrion’s US partner Inhalon Biopharma completed the planned administering of the drugs for 24 volunteers after it acquired testing approval from the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration in August. The results of the clinical trial proved the drug’s safety, as there were no serious adverse events from inha

Korea’s major game developers are taking preemptive measures to cope with the new industrial safety law and prevent another “crunch mode” controversy. Under the Serious Accident Punishment Act, which took effect from Jan. 27, business owners can face a minimum prison term of one year or a fine of up to 1 billion won ($835,000) if a fatal accident at the workplace causes a death or more than one injured person. The punishment depends on whether the owners are found guilty of n

Although it has been over two years since the coronavirus began spreading in Korea, the country has not seen a homemade vaccine developed yet. SK Bioscience is the company closest to delivering the first Korean-developed vaccine as the biopharmaceutical firm’s GBP510 is in the third and final phase of clinical trials. The government and company officials have voiced hope for a successful result and swift authorization as well as commercialization of GBP510 in the first half of this year,

Samsung Biologics has reached an agreement with Biogen to buy out the US biotechnology firm’s stake in Samsung Bioepis for $2.3 billion (2.7 trillion won), the company said Friday. Biogen secured a 15 percent stake when Samsung Bioepis was established as a joint venture in 2012. The US company exercised its right in June 2018 to buy up to one share less of Samsung Bioepis’ 50 percent stock. The payment for the 10,341,852 shares will be carried out over the next two years and full

The government will introduce the Korean version of the US‘ Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency this year to accelerate future-oriented research on innovative technology, Science and ICT Minister Lim Hye-sook said Thursday. Adapting the US DARPA model -- creator of the computer mouse, drones, the Internet predecessor Arpanet, GPS, and voice recognition -- the Korean agency will have its own independent rights in operation and budget to lead challenging research and development of n