Samsung SDS, the information technology solutions unit of Samsung Group, said Thursday it will unveil a new security solution for smartwatches at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this week.　Samsung SDS will debut its “Enterprise Mobility Management” solution, designed for application to wearables running on Samsung’s Tizen operating system, at the US-based tech event.　The Samsung SDS EMM for Wearables is a cloud-based security solution designed for use by companies that want to secure

South Korean internet giant Naver said Wednesday that its mobile video messaging app Snow has attracted more than 100 million users worldwide as of December.Released in September 2015, Snow is a mobile messaging app that lets users exchange video messages and photos with other users. It offers a range of camera filters that add shining eyes, bunny ears, funny masks and other elements to selfies and videos.Snow surpassed the 100 million user mark as of mid-December 2016, just 15 months after its

South Korea’s Hanmi Pharmaceutical said Wednesday it will launch its dual-action drug for hyperlipidemia, Rosuzet, across global markets in partnership with US pharmaceutical giant Merck Sharp & Dohme.　The two have newly entered a licensing partnership under which MSD will take charge of selling Hanmi’s Rosuzet across 23 countries, excluding Korea. Hanmi said it could not specify the given countries due to contract stipulations. Hanmi Pharmaceutical's Rosuzet (Hanmi Pharmaceutical)Rosuzet is a d

South Korean biopharma company Green Cross has taken the lead in the global chickenpox vaccine market by winning a major order from the Pan American Health Organization.　Green Cross said Tuesday that it has secured a $60 million order to supply its varicella -- the virus that causes chickenpox -- vaccine, to PAHO from 2017-2018. This amounts to around 66 percent of the agency’s total varicella vaccine procurement quota.Under the new contract, the Korean drugmaker will export its varicella vaccin

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, opened Tuesday a new crowdfunding platform to support local content creators and their work.　　The new platform, called “People Funding,” is the latest in a series of crowdfunding projects introduced by Kakao over the past two years, including “Story Funding” and “Heart Funding.”　Story Funding, which was introduced in 2015, focuses on financing a particular story or project. However, People Funding aims to provide more support f

SK Telecom CEO Park Jung-ho, chief of South Korea’s largest mobile carrier, pledged to make SKT the country’s representative information and communication technology firm to lead the fourth industrial revolution.　“The fourth industrial revolution will eliminate borders and divisions between business sectors, ushering in global competition” Park said.“We must break out of the current paradigm and devise a new business model so that we can achieve growth on a global scale,” he said, vowing to expa

KT Chairman Hwang Chang-gyu has called for South Korea’s second-largest mobile carrier to move beyond its flagship telecom business and become a platform company based on intelligent network technologies.“KT’s goal should not be to become Korea’s No. 1 telecom company but to become a platform company with intelligent network technologies,” Hwang said during his New Year’s speech.“We should not aim to become the No. 1 leader in the IPTV market, but become a strong media platform company that can

Unicity Korea, the local branch of US-based direct sales company Unicity International, has officially introduced its new multivitamin product “Core Health Pack” in South Korea.　Unicity’s “Core Health Pack” consists of packs of dietary supplements which are divided into morning and night formulas. Each serving is packaged separately for easy storage and portability. Unicity's Core Health Pack (Unicity Korea)The morning formula, designed to give an energy boost throughout the day, includes 13 vit

South Korea’s CJ Group vowed to actively pursue new strategic mergers and acquisitions in 2017 to strengthen its core businesses and to boost their global competitiveness.“Despite the continued economic downturn and unstable market conditions, I ask all our employees to make this a historic year in the future growth of the company,” said CJ Group Chairman Sohn Kyoung-shik.  CJ Group Chairman Sohn Kyoung-shik (CJ Group)Sohn urged CJ to pursue strategic M&A’s to expand its main businesses -- food,

After a year of political unrest, public fury at problematic state-business ties and a prolonged economic downturn, the chiefs of South Korea’s major business groups called upon businesses to “return to the fundamentals” in 2017.“Korean businesses recently became a center of controversy, disappointing the public,” said Park Yong-maan, Chairman of the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the country’s largest business association, in his New Year’s speech.“We will work to foster stricter stand

Suh Min-jung, the eldest daughter of AmorePacific Group chairman Suh Kyeong-bae, is scheduled to officially join her family’s company as a new employee from Jan. 1, 2017, the company said Friday.　In doing so, observers say the junior Suh has taken the first visible step in preparing to take over the family business as her father’s successor.The 25-year-old AmorePacific heiress apparent will begin working as a starting-level employee at AmorePacific’s production plant in Osong, North Chungcheong

South Korea’s Hanmi Pharmaceutical on Thursday announced the reduction of a major licensing partnership it entered with Sanofi over a set of new long-acting diabetes treatments developed by Hanmi.　Under the newly agreed terms, Sanofi will return the development and commercialization rights to one of the three diabetes treatments it had licensed from Hanmi. In turn, Hanmi will refund a part of the upfront payment it had originally received from the French drugmaker. The Hanmi Pharmaceutical headq

South Korean pharmaceutical company Yuhan Corp. disclosed Wednesday that it has terminated its licensing partnership with China’s Luoxin Biotechnology Co. over its failure to fulfill its contractual duties.Yuhan had licensed out its new lung cancer drug candidate YH25448 to Luoxin Biotechnology in July this year in a deal valued at around $120 million. The two firms had been carrying out further talks over the contract details.Under the deal, Luoxin Biotechnology had agreed to jointly develop Yu

South Korea’s leading mobile game company Netmarble Games is looking to capture game enthusiasts and Star Wars fans around the world with the launch of its new mobile game “Star Wars: Force Arena” in 2017. 　“Star Wars: Force Arena” is a mobile strategy game under development by Netmarble Games’ development studio and subsidiary Netmarble Monster, best known as the creator of the globally famous mobile role-playing game “Marvel: Future Fight.”The new game is slated for global release in 154 count

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s top mobile messenger KakaoTalk, was fined 242 million won ($200,700) on Monday for unilaterally sending out informational notification messages — which charge data usage fees — without sufficiently notifying users about the service.　Korea Communications Commission, the state-run media regulator, also slapped the company with a 100 million won penalty for failing to notify users that the URL addresses they exchanged via KakaoTalk were used in search query resu

The South Korean government on Tuesday rolled out plans to strengthen the country’s green tea industry over the next 10 years, with aims to boost local tea production and exports.　The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs said it will enact policies to double the country's green tea production to 120 billion won ($160 million) and green tea exports to $1 million by 2026.　“We hope to revitalize Korea’s stagnant tea industry to reposition it as one of the country’s economic growth driver

South Korean internet giant Naver denied reports Sunday that it has an internal policy that allows the government to demand unilateral changes to the portal website’s “current most-searched keywords” list.　According to Yonhap News Agency, government agencies can ask Naver to delete or exclude certain trending keywords from its website, signaling potential manipulation and state surveillance of public information on the web.　Naver’s current most-searched keywords list often reflects the hottest t

A number of South Korean biopharmaceutical products will make their full-fledged debuts in the US next year, with the aim of taking a share of the world’s largest market for pharmaceutical and health care goods.　Leading the move is Celltrion, the developer of the world’s first biosimilar drug referencing Johnson & Johnson’s Remicade, which treats chronic inflammatory illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. Celltrion’s US marketing partner Pfizer officially began sales of Cell

As an entrepreneur and an investor, Jeffrey Lim, head of Google Campus Seoul, has seen the rise and fall of various South Korean startups.In the startup world, ideas driven by passion have immense potential, but are prone to failure. Knowing this, what concerns Lim most about Korean startups is not the quality of their ideas, but an absence of entrepreneurship and teambuilding efforts which he believes are more important considerations for budding enterprises.Jeffrey Lim, head of Google Campus S

South Korea’s Drug Ministry said Thursday that it has officially joined the international pharmaceutical cooperation body ICH, a move expected to ease the entry of Korean pharmaceutical products into overseas markets. The Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is the sixth member of the International Council for Harmonization of Technical Requirements for Pharmaceuticals for Human Use, which aims to establish a shared international standard across all stages of the pharmaceuticals regulation pr