The history of South Korea's industrial growth has been a series of constant transformations. The country moved through textiles, shipbuilding and automobiles before semiconductors established themselves as the core industry driving the national economy. Now South Korea stands before another important inflection point: a transformation toward the bio industry.
Semiconductors remain South Korea's most important strategic national industry. But the global industrial landscape is changing fast. Artificial intelligence, rapid population aging, innovation in drug development technology, precision medicine and advances in bio-platform technology are elevating biotech beyond a simple healthcare sector into a core industry that will shape the nation's future competitiveness.
I spent seven years conducting new drug research at an overseas laboratory before moving, about seven years ago, into the capital markets and investment industry on Yeouido as a venture capitalist. Since then, I have reviewed and invested directly in numerous bio companies, walking alongside them from their growth through their listing on the KOSDAQ.
The biggest change I feel when looking at these companies from the investment field is clear. Where Korea's bio industry once remained at an early stage centered on research and development, it is now entering a stage of competing directly in the global market on the strength of global clinical trials, technology exports, platform-based innovative drug pipeline development, and bio manufacturing and production competitiveness.
On the global stage, biotech has already moved beyond the realm of mere science and technology or healthcare. It is establishing itself as a vast industry connected even to national security and industrial competitiveness, in that it creates enormous added value while also governing the supply chains for pharmaceuticals and medical technology.
In particular, the healthcare megatrend represented by the worldwide trend of rapid population aging and the global craze for obesity drugs (GLP-1) is further accelerating the expansion of the bio market.
What matters is not only the size of the market. Biotech does not end as a single industry. Centered on drug development, numerous industries — research, clinical trials, diagnostics, medical devices, data, AI, bio manufacturing, automation and robotics — connect to one another to form a vast ecosystem.
The growth of the bio industry does not mean the growth of only a few particular pharmaceutical companies. It means that an entire new industrial ecosystem grows, from research and development to production, logistics, data and automation. From this perspective, biotech is an industry South Korea must pay attention to as it prepares its next growth cycle.
The Promise of K-Bio Shown by Samsung Biologics and Alteogen
The strength of K-bio no longer remains a matter of possibility. It is already being proven through concrete results in the global market. The representative cases are Samsung Biologics (207940.KS) and Alteogen.
Samsung Biologics secured world-class contract development and manufacturing (CDMO) capabilities through bold, preemptive large-scale facility investment, and has grown into a core production partner for global big pharma.
What I feel while meeting global bio companies in the investment field is no different. To global firms, Korea is no longer a country that develops generic drugs and simple new medicines. It is recognized as a production hub with world-class bio manufacturing capabilities.
If Taiwan's TSMC once secured a central position in the global semiconductor supply chain on the strength of its unrivaled foundry competitiveness, Korea's bio manufacturing companies are now building a similar strategic position in the global pharmaceutical supply chain. This change is evolving one step further.
Along with the scaling-up of bio manufacturing facilities, the automation of production processes, data-driven operations and the introduction of AI and robotics technology are advancing rapidly. Future bio manufacturing competitiveness is likely to be determined not simply by how much can be produced, but by how precisely and reliably it can be produced through automated methods.
Alteogen's growth is a representative case showing the possibility that K-bio can become a game changer in the global market through original and platform technology, rather than remaining confined to production and manufacturing competitiveness. At present, the investment subsidiaries of global pharmaceutical companies are continuously increasing the scale of their investments in Korean bio firms.
In particular, in the bio industry, the value of platform technology that can be expanded into multiple pipelines and indications is becoming more important than a single new drug candidate itself.
From an investor's perspective, this change carries great significance. In the past, bio investment often saw a company's value swing greatly depending on the clinical success or failure of a single drug candidate. Recently, however, interest is rising in companies that can expand one technology into diverse pipelines, companies that can co-develop with or export technology to global pharmaceutical firms, and companies that can connect research and development through to production.
Going forward, the competitiveness of K-bio is likely to shift toward building research and technology capabilities and ecosystems that can repeatedly generate new value. This is a moment to more coolly evaluate the distinctiveness of technology, the quality of clinical data, the potential for global commercialization, cash flow and fundraising ability, management's execution capability, and actual competitive advantages in the market.
The Global Industrial DNA Built by Semiconductors — Now the Time to Extend It to Biotech
Behind South Korea's growth into a semiconductor powerhouse were outstanding manufacturing capabilities and talent, large-scale investment, and the ability to respond to the global market. This industrial DNA can become a powerful source of competitiveness in the bio field as well.
This does not mean that biotech will replace semiconductors. Rather, it is closer to the idea that South Korea must connect the manufacturing and technological competitiveness it accumulated in the semiconductor industry to biotech, and build a new industrial ecosystem.
Biotech is not simply an industry that develops a single new drug. It requires long-term investment spanning candidate discovery, clinical trials, production, global approval and commercialization. To build a successful bio ecosystem, not only technological capability but also capital, management capacity and global networks must come together.
South Korea already possesses world-class bio production capabilities. It is also rapidly expanding its competitiveness in next-generation fields such as AI-based drug development, antibody and protein platforms, and cell and gene therapies.
The global pharmaceutical and bio industry is now passing through a period of enormous change. It is moving from a market centered on existing blockbuster drugs toward one centered on next-generation innovative treatment technologies.
In particular, treatments for rare diseases, immuno-oncology drugs, RNA therapeutics and AI-driven drug development are showing high growth potential. Domestic companies, too, are preparing to enter the market amid this change, whether by cooperating with global big pharma or on the strength of their own platform technology.
Samsung Biologics' manufacturing competitiveness, Celltrion's (068270.KS) global commercialization experience, and the growth of platform technology companies such as Alteogen show that K-bio can already compete in the global market.
What is needed now is an industrial ecosystem that connects these companies, beyond the success of individual firms.
The government must continue investing in research and development, clinical trials, and manufacturing facilities and infrastructure from a long-term perspective. Companies must set strategies aimed at the global market from the earliest stages of their business. Financial markets, too, need to move away from an approach centered on short-term share prices or events and evaluate the value of bio companies based on technology, business models and global competitiveness.
Venture capital, too, must move beyond simply supplying funds. It must identify in advance which technologies will become the global industrial standard five years from now, and which companies will become key players in the new supply chain.
Over the past seven years, meeting numerous bio companies in the investment field, I have come to hold one conviction. K-bio is no longer an industry that talks about "possibility." It is now an industry that must consider what position it will occupy in the global market.
If semiconductors led South Korea's past growth cycle, biotech is one of the powerful candidates to shape the growth cycle to come.
At the center of that growth will sit not the success of a single new drug alone, but a new bio industry ecosystem in which AI, data, semiconductors, robotics and manufacturing are connected.
