South Korean drug maker Boryung has acquired the selling rights of Alimta, a non-small cell lung cancer treatment developed by US pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for the local market. According to Boryung on Tuesday, the acquisition agreement also included the copyright and licensing rights of Alimta in the country. First introduced in Korea in 2006, Alimta was the first drug to significantly reduce the anti-cancer drug’s adverse effects and toxicity while improving the survival rate of

Technology Oct. 26, 2022

South Korean electronics giants are bracing for uncertainties across the board, with some leading exporters mapping out belt-tightening plans to address the situation that some have described as grave as the 2008 global financial crisis. Memory chip supplier SK hynix is one of the companies hit hardest by slowing consumer demand and the US-China tech arms race. The memory chip downcycle follows a pileup of order backlogs, and uncertainties are growing in its Chinese operations due to semiconduct

Technology Oct. 26, 2022

The South Korean government on Tuesday kicked off the first World Bio Summit, a joint event with the World Health Organization to gather leaders of the vaccine and biotechnology industry to discuss innovations and ways to strengthen global health security. President Yoon Suk-yeol highlighted the importance of solidary and cooperation that go beyond the borders to prepare for humanity’s common adversity of new infectious diseases and pandemics. “Global society should work together

Technology Oct. 25, 2022

Kim Beom-su, founder of South Korean online platform behemoth Kakao, said Monday that he will consider providing across-the-board compensation for users who suffered damages due to the company’s unprecedented service malfunction caused by a fire at an SK C&C data center on Oct. 15. "We are currently accepting damage reports from the users, so it is difficult to specifically tell the type and size of our compensation. We are reviewing all measures to help (users) recover,”

Technology Oct. 24, 2022

The South Korean government will set up a digital crisis management headquarters to launch an all-year-round system that inspects and supervises the country’s digital infrastructure and services, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Friday. The government’s plan came in the wake of Kakao’s server outage caused by a fire at SK C&C’s data center building, which led to a breakdown of the country’s most popular messaging app KakaoTalk for over 10 hours on Oct. 15. M

Technology Oct. 23, 2022

A team of researchers have developed the world’s first gripper that can work like an elephant’s trunk, the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials said Thursday. Inspired by how an elephant picks up smaller objects by folding the end of the trunk and grabs bigger objects by inhaling air, the newly-developed gripper can pick up things by either gripping or adsorbing them. The researchers put together a flexible structure consisting of a wire that can transform its shape and a flexi

Technology Oct. 20, 2022

Kakao Corp. and SK C&C on Tuesday voiced subtle differences over how the weekend server outage went down at the SK facility -- which houses Kakao’s data center -- foreshadowing possibilities of future legal disputes over damage compensation. According to each company’s officials, SK C&C claimed that only some of the electricity to the data room containing Kakao’s servers were cut off by the fire, while Kakao insisted that a majority of its servers at SK C&C’s

Technology Oct. 18, 2022

The aftermath of Kakao’s sudden shutdown continued Monday, as South Korea’s largest messenger app operator claimed its service failures due to a fire at SK C&C’s data center over the weekend would have limited financial impacts, while analysts predicted Kakao would suffer up to 22 billion won ($15.3 million) in sales loss in the fourth quarter. Kakao has set up an emergency committee, headed by its co-CEO Hong Eun-taek, to investigate the cause of the disastrous shutdown, c

Technology Oct. 17, 2022

Samsung Electronics Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong on Tuesday visited Samsung Biologics, a contract manufacturing and development organization under the Samsung empire, in Songdo, west of Seoul, vowing to invest 7.5 trillion won ($5.2 billion) through 2032 to solidify the biotechnology unit's leading position in the worldwide CDMO industry.  The investment is about building four more biomanufacturing plants at the second Biocampus, the company said, adding that it has begun the partial operati

Technology Oct. 11, 2022

South Korea’s science experts have called for nationwide efforts to set up a national science hub in order to gather the country’s scientific talents and research efforts. According to the Science Dreamland, an incorporated association, over 100 figures from the science and technology sector, local governments and companies gathered to share thoughts on how to successfully push for building a national science hub at the National Assembly Members Office on Friday. The association refe

Technology Oct. 7, 2022

Samsung Electronics is expected to log a sharp drop in its quarterly operating profits as the company on Friday announced that its tentative third-quarter operating profits are estimated at 10.8 trillion won ($7.7 billion), a 31.73 percent decline on year. According to the South Korean chipmaker, its operating profits from the third quarter will also have declined by 23.4 percent on quarter. The downfall will mark the first quarterly dip in the company’s operating profits since the fourth

Technology Oct. 7, 2022

South Korean IT giant Naver will buy Poshmark, the largest social commerce marketplace in North America, for a total of $1.6 billion (2.3 trillion won), the companies said Tuesday. Naver will acquire all of Poshmark stocks at $17.9 per share in a buyout worth approximately $1.2 billion. The rest of the $1.6 billion deal includes consideration for Poshmark’s cash holdings of some $580 million. As the biggest acquisition ever for a Korean IT company, Wednesday’s announcement marked t

Technology Oct. 4, 2022

SEJONG -- SK Group, South Korea’s second-largest conglomerate by market capitalization, is looking to expand its contract development and manufacturing organization businesses with the completion of SK Biotek Sejong plant’s third pharmaceutical manufacturing facility. With SK Biotek’s Module 3 launch in September, the Sejong Plant’s total manufacturing capacity increased by over 50 percent to 290 cubic meters. Combined with Modules 1 and 2, the plant can now produce up t

Technology Oct. 4, 2022

As SK Bioscience is poised to contribute to the world’s prolonged battle against the COVID-19 pandemic with its SKYCovione vaccine, the South Korean vaccine maker has underlined the importance of global partnerships in developing the country’s first homemade COVID-19 vaccine. SK Bioscience joined hands with the Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington School of Medicine to develop SKYCovione, a self-assembled nanoparticle vaccine. The development process was also

Technology Oct. 3, 2022

The South Korean government on Wednesday unveiled a blueprint to become a global leader in digital innovation with the goal of becoming the world's third most digitally competitive by 2027. "We will bring up our global (artificial intelligence) competitiveness to No. 3 in the world and double the data market size to 50 trillion won ($34.7 billion) or bigger," said President Yoon Suk-yeol as he chaired the eighth pangovernmental meeting on economy and people's livelihood at the Kimdaej

Technology Sept. 28, 2022