Hanmi Pharmaceutical Co. CEO Kwon Se-chang said on Sept. 13, “A rare curable disease is a good area for smaller countries to try. It will be possible to achieve global performance in the near future."
Delivering a keynote speech at the 2018 Seoul Bio Economic Forum held at KBIZ in Yoido, Seoul, CEO Kwon said, “Recently, multinational companies have selected disease areas, not just products, and transferred technologies. They are engaging in M&A of companies with various new drug candidates in one area of disease.”
The forum was hosted by the Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Science and Technology Information and Communication, and organized by the Osong Medical Innovation Foundation and the Korea Health and Industry Promotion Agency.
Under the topic of the “present and future of global new drug development,” CEO Kwon said that the risk for new drug development can be reduced through such new drug development trend.
"We can continue to use R&D infrastructures even if we fall behind in the development of candidate materials by establishing areas for diseases and developing new drugs at the same time." said CEO Kwon.
Asserting that Korean pharmaceutical and bio-companies should develop new medicines based on disease rather than on products, he especially praised the growth in the rare incurable disease sector.
"Although the area of rare disease is not large, it is worth challenging if one finds a field that has no competitors yet. It is the field that we can attain global achievements at an early stage," he said.
The market for treatments for rare incurable diseases is growing at an annual rate of 113 percent. In particular, multinational pharmaceutical companies are showing interest in the market for treatments for rare incurable diseases.
"Korean companies should take the lead in certain areas. Although size of markets is small, there are relatively few competitors,” said CEO Kwon.
Hanmi Pharm also places the focus on developing treatments for rare incurable diseases. "Our company has 25 new drug candidates. And one or two new drug candidates are expected to enter the U.S. and domestic clinical trials this year,” he added.