연구기관 기술이전 받는 '연구소기업' 천개 돌파...고용 효과도 탁월

South Korea is enjoying a boom in private sector scientific research.
The country has a category of companies set up specifically to conduct and commercialize research... with funding from the government.
Park Se-young has more.
This bio-medical company is working to develop anticancer drugs that are administered orally instead of injected.
It was given cancer-fighting compounds developed by the government-funded Korea Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology ...and expects to have a working drug soon,... aiming to enter the U.S. market by 2025.
This would be the first cancer drug of its kind from a private Korean research institute.
"After completing clinical trials by 2025, we're looking to enter the U.S. market and achieve sales of over 200 million dollars by 2027."
The number of research companies has been increasing rapidly since the first one opened in 2006.
Last year, total sales by these companies exceeded 600 million dollars, ...recording a growth of about 26 percent each year.
This has also yielded new job opportunities, with the total number of employees in the sector reaching four-thousand.
During the COVID-19 outbreak, some companies made rapid progress with so-called K-quarantine items like diagnostic kits.
"I think these success cases have shown that research companies are quite good at what they do. Reaching one-thousand companies should give the sector fresh momentum."
Research companies are currently focused on the IT and bio sectors.
Going forward, the government plans to establish and implement customized support strategies for launching them in new industries.
Park Se-young, Arirang News.