Merck has been recognized with the Korea Bioprocessing Excellence Award at the Biologics Manufacturing Korea 2020 event, the company announced Thursday. The event, in its ninth year, annually invites some 400 experts from more than 100 governmental groups, nongovernmental organizations, related businesses and academic institutions to honor them in their respective categories. This year’s event was conducted virtually due to COVID-19. “Merck’s technology was recognized in the

Many may have forgotten, but LG Chem was once the center of Korean bio innovations -- and it is taking steps to get back in the game where new players Samsung and SK are now making strides. In the latest, groundbreaking announcement for shareholders, LG Chem said it will separate its cash cow battery business and focus on promoting the balanced triangular growth of its petrochemicals, advanced materials and life sciences businesses. Shareholders are noticeably displeased with the company&rsquo

Samsung Biologics marked an operating profit in the first three quarters of 2020 of more than double its entire yearly performance of 2019, proving it has been undamaged and even buoyed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has largely slashed earnings across various industries. During the three months of July through September, Samsung biologics made revenue of 274.6 billion won ($242.4 million) and an operating profit of 56.5 billion won, according to the accumulated third quarter report on Wednesd

LG Display signed a three-year strategic partnership with Walt Disney Studios’ StudioLAB to provide it with organic light-emitting diode TV panels, the company said Wednesday. The deal will add transparent, ultrahigh-definition display panels developed and manufactured by LG Display for StudioLAB. StudioLAB is a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios that researches cutting-edge filmmaking technologies. Walt Disney Studios comprises of Disney, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Pixar Animation

After most of its Meditoxin units were stripped of its sales licenses, Medytox is at risk of losing two more of its products’ licenses as the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety moves to penalize their illegal sales in China. On Monday evening, the ministry issued an announcement that it has determined the 50, 100, 150 and 200 units of Meditoxin and Coretox violated the Pharmaceutical Act by trading overseas without the agency‘s permission to leave the country. Meditoxin 50, 100 and

GC Wellbeing has finished injection of its novel drug pipeline GCWB204 in European clinical phase 2 trial, the company said Tuesday. By the first half of 2021, GC Wellbeing will learn the scope of the drug’s effects and engage in negotiations for licensing it out, it added. GCBWB204 is a novel drug candidate for cancer cachexia, which is a nutritional imbalance in cancer patients that causes muscular atrophy and metabolic disorders. This medical condition can be caused by cancer itself,

Kolon Life Science will separate its biologics drug manufacturing business to an independent entity tentatively called Kolon Biotech. The separation is effective from Dec. 1, Kolon Life Science said through a shareholders’ notice on Friday. Kolon Biotech will be responsible for contract manufacturing of biologics drugs, using a facility that has been freed up after Kolon Life Science ceased production of the controversially revoked gene therapy Invossa. Kolon Life Science had battled an

An increasing number of South Korean pharmaceutical companies are catching on to Switzerland’s potential as a portal to the wider European market. Most Koreans know Switzerland for its chocolate, cheese, Army knives, watches and the Alps. But it is not these seemingly iconic items that are holding up the Swiss economy, whose gross domestic product per capita in 2019 ranked second only to Luxembourg in International Monetary Fund’s book — a ranking that demands appreciation giv

SK Biopharmaceuticals has licensed out its breakthrough epilepsy drug cenobamate to Japan’s Ono Pharmaceutical for 53.1 billion yen ($503 million), the company said via shareholders’ notice, Tuesday. The contract gives Ono the rights to develop and commercialize cenobamate in Japan. SK Biopharmaceuticals’ CEO Cho explained that this is a strategic decision to enter Japan, one of Asia’s largest pharmaceuticals market. Cenobamate is a drug for partial-onset seizure pa

Celltrion’s COVID-19 antibody pipeline CT-P59 will be clinically tested on asymptomatic COVID-19 patients and people who have come in close contact with confirmed patients, such as medical workers, to prevent infection, Celltrion said Monday. The purpose of the test is to verify CT-P59’s preventive effects against COVID-19 infection and early-phase virus eradication. Celltrion hopes this will cut blind spots where vaccines may fail to cover. The test will target a total of 1,000 p

Daewoong Pharmaceutical gained the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s approval to conduct a phase 1 clinical trial of niclosamide as a potential COVID-19 treatment, the company said Monday. Daewoong is currently testing its niclosamide pipeline DWRX2003 in India and Philippines, where the company says the progress is smooth. Daewoong plans to enter phase 2/3 trial in multiple nations before this year ends, and aims to apply for conditional approval or emergency use of the drug upon phas

Joh Sung-wook, chairperson of the Fair Trade Commission, will look into Google’s purported anti-competitive practice of taking 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. Joh, speaking at the National Assembly’s inspection of the FTC on Thursday, said that what Google does may eventually affect the end-consumer, and that its monopoly of the market calls for a review. Upon being asked whether the Monopoly Regulation and Fair Trade Act may apply in the case of Google’s 30 perc

CrystalGenomics on Thursday said it appointed Gavin Choy as the CEO of its US subsidiary, CG Pharmaceuticals. Choy has 27 years of experience in researching and developing anticancer and antiviral treatments, as well as four successful clinical trial design applications with the US Food and Drug Administration, CrystalGenomics said. At his new post, Choy will help CrystalGenomics advance its COVID-19 treatment pipeline for pancreatic cancer treatment research in the US. Choy holds a doctorat

Celltrion’s Xolair biosimilar CT-P39 was given the Korean drug authority’s green light to proceed to a clinical phase 3 trial in Korea, the company said Thursday. The company plans to begin the late stage human test of the pipeline first in Korea, and expand to 600 patients suffering from chronic spontaneous urticaria in seven countries. So far, in Australia, Celltrion has gained midterm data for the drug’s safety in the human body from the phase 1 clinical trial that is bei

Meditoxin, South Korea’s first botulinum toxin product, was selected by dermatologists and plastic surgeons as the most preferred product for smoothing wrinkles, developer Medytox said Wednesday. In the first issue of the journal Aesthetics, published by the Korean Association for Laser, Dermatology and Trichology, Meditoxin received 51.6 percent of the votes, winning the top spot among Korean botulinum toxin products. Hugel’s Botulax came in second at 32.5 percent and Daewoong Pha

  진행자: 임정요, Paul Kerry 1. Foreign minister in hot water over husband's US trip to purchase yacht 요약: 강경화 외교부장관의 남편 이일병 교수가 코로나19 사태에 여행자제 권고에도 불구하고 개인 요트 구매를 위해 미국 여행을 떠나 논란이 일고 있다. [1] Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha has been hit by controversy over her husband’s recent trip to the US presumably to purchase a yacht, with political parties lambasting the excursion as “inappropriate,” saying it went against her own recommendation that people re

How far has humanity come in preventing -- or rewinding -- neurodegeneration? Designed Cells, a Korean stem cell therapy company, has the ambitious dream of achieving something no one has ever yet succeeded in doing: curing dementia. Dementia, which can be but is not always a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, is a cognitive dysfunction commonly found in aged seniors. However, it is not a normal part of aging -- the destructive effects of dementia go beyond the ordinary forgetfulness that mi

Green Cross Medical Science Corporation, the diagnostics kits affiliate of GC, signed a $19 million deal to export diagnostic devices that will simultaneously and separately detect COVID-19 and influenza. GCMS will provide Polish company Handprod with $11 million worth of blood sugar measurement devices and glycated hemoglobin evaluation systems; and provide Swiss firm Medysis with $8 million worth of a combined diagnosis kits for COVID-19 and influenza, as well as an immunofluorescence antigen

GC Pharma on Monday said that it completed the sales of its American subsidiaries to Spanish firm Grifols three months after they initiated talks. “The proceeds from the transaction will be used to streamline management and for new business investments,” said Huh Yong-jun, CEO of GC. At $460 million, the sales of Green Cross BioTherapeutics in Montreal, Canada, and GCAM in the US, amount to the biggest cross border transaction of business units for a Korean pharmaceuticals firm.

LG Electronics said Monday that it has completed the installation of an organic light-emitting diode screen on Teheran-ro in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. It is the country’s biggest light-box-style screen for outdoor advertisements, according to the firm. The 13-by-50-meter OLED advertisement panel appears on the facade of the Grand Intercontinental Seoul Parnas. The surface area of the panel is 650 square meters -- enough room for more than 510 of the company’s 65-inch TVs. The area where L