Trend towards increased pharma exports and nutraceuticals reported at CPHI Korea

The Korean biosimilar market was another area that gathered much international interest at CPHI Korea.

Moreover, the Government is further supporting these international partnerships by evolving the regulatory system in a bid to provide a transparent, efficient system to facilitate faster approval of drugs. As such, the event has been undertaken with the help of key industry partners: MFDS (Ministry of Food and Drug Safety), Chungbuk Technopark, KBIZ (Korea Federation of Small and Medium Business), KOBIA (Korea Biomedicine Industry Association), KDRA (Korea Drug Research Association) and KIT (Korea Institute of Technology).

The Korean Government is also actively encouraging overseas clinical trials, M&A, and open innovation with a USD $150 million ‘Global Healthcare Fund’ investment. Multinational companies at the event included Ajinomotogenexine, Bollore Logistics, Dupont Korea, Elsevier Korea, Khaiel GmbH, Malvern Instrument, Thermofisher Scientific, and Universal Robots.

Another area that gathered much international interest at CPHI Korea is the Korean biosimilar market, which is expected to reach $1.2 billion by 2019. Key trends highlighted during sessions included ‘Accelerated CMC Approaches for Therapeutic Antibody Development’ and a study on the regulatory harmonization of bioequivalence.

Remarkably, the Korean nutraceutical sector experienced an 11.5% growth in the last year, reaching $1.7 billion. Mirroring this growth, CPHI Korea opened its first ever Health Ingredients (Hi) Korea. The new co-located event brought experts from across the nutraceutical sector and offered insights on regional prospects (primarily in Japan), as well as new regulatory guidelines for health benefits claims of nutraceuticals.

Other key topics explored at the event include “New normal: challenges and opportunities of China pharma market”, “Success strategy to enter EU”, and “GMP compliance inspection by PMDA”.

Rutger Oudejans, Brand Director Pharma at UBM EMEA added: “It has been fantastic to see Korea’s rapid progression in the 3 years that we have organised CPHI Korea. It has seen growth not only in terms of overall production levels, but has also moved up the pharma value chain into biosimilars, and more recently nutraceutical sales regionally. Manufacturers in the country are increasingly experiencing a good deal of international activity, highlighted by the growing international audience of the event, with many exporting to nearby economies – including highly competitive, mature markets such as Japan and China, as well as Europe and the US. It has been an amazing year for CPHI Korea and we look forward to another exciting event in 2017.”

Ms Shruti Kutariyar and Mr Virash R. Maurya, Sr. Executive Marketing from Harman Finochem, remarked: “We have come to the show last year as a visitor and this was the first time to exhibit at CPHI Korea. We saw many more buyers compared to last year, and it was especially good to meet the buyers from surrounding Asia regions such as China, Japan, Iran, and Turkey. It was very effective to showcase our new products and technology to domestic traders and buyers.”