South Korea will cut down the time it takes to complete the review process for national research and development projects to 4 1/2 months from the current seven-month period to secure the timeliness of certain projects, the Ministry of Science and ICT said Friday, as it announced the revised policies to enhance the country’s preliminary feasibility study for R＆D projects. According to the ministry, projects that will be subject to the new review policy will be limited to those that pass th

US President Joe Biden’s executive order on bolstering the country's biotechnology and biomanufacturing sectors with over $2 billion in spending will not dampen the outlook for the South Korean bio industry, according to industry insiders and analysts. The US-first initiative could rather serve as an opportunity for Korean companies, they said. “The US’ move appears to be another attempt to solidify the ‘made-in-America’ efforts, similar to the electric vehicle and

LG Uplus, South Korea’s third-largest telecom operator by market share, has pledged to increase the sales proportion of non-telecommunication services to 40 percent of the total by 2027 with a focus on developing platform businesses. “Now moving beyond the area of traditional telecom businesses, we are looking to open up the era of ‘U+3.0’ that creates data- and technology-based platforms and services centered around customers to discover future growth engines,” sa

The South Korean government has imposed a total of 100 billion won ($72 million) in fines against Google and Meta for illegally collecting and using personal information for customized advertisements, officials said Wednesday. The Personal Information Protection Commission under the Prime Minister's Office decided to impose fines of 69.2 billion won and 30.8 billion won against Google and Meta, respectively, after it held a plenary session earlier in the day. According to the PIPC’s inve

Naver Z, the metaverse affiliate of South Korean IT giant Naver, has joined the Tech Coalition to fight online sexual abuse and exploitation of children, the company said Wednesday. Established as a voluntary working group in 2006, the Tech Coalition is a global alliance of technology companies that have come together to better detect, report, remove and prevent online child sexual abuse. With Naver Z becoming the newest member of the alliance, there are now 28 companies including Amazon, Appl

Hanmi Pharmaceutical has scored its first approval from the US Food and Drug Administration with its novel biomedicine Rolontis. Rolontis -- Hanmi Pharmaceutical's treatment for neutropenia, a disease that occurs when a specific type of white blood cells is lacking so that the body cannot fight infections, especially those caused by bacteria -- was given the FDA’s approval on Friday, according to the Korean firm’s US partner Spectrum Pharmaceuticals’ announcement. Neutropenia's

Grand plans laid out by Seoul and Busan show how South Korea will play a major role as Asia's influence grows, according to futurist Richard Yonck. “One of the things that are very apparent to me is that a huge amount of the future is going to be happening through Asia,” Yonck, founder of Intelligent Future Consulting, told The Korea Herald in Seoul on Sept. 5. Mentioning the Seoul Vision 2030 plan and the government efforts to host the 2030 World Expo in Busan, the futurist said t

HLB’s precision cancer drug Rivoceranib has demonstrated the world’s longest median overall survival, or mOS, in phase 3 clinical trials of liver cancer, the South Korean biopharmaceutical company said Thursday. According to HLB, Rivoceranib’s mOS recorded 22.1 months to mark the first drug in the world to break the 20-month barrier against liver cancer. The company earlier released the abstract of phase 3 concomitant clinical trials of Rivoceranib and anticancer drug Camreli

SK Bioscience has completed the application for an emergency use listing of SKYCovione -- South Korea’s first homemade COVID-19 vaccine -- with the World Health Organization, the local vaccine developer said Thursday. The WHO’s emergency use listing is the global health body’s procedure for reviewing vaccines, therapeutics and in vitro diagnosis with the goal of expediting the availability of such products to people in case of a public health emergency. As the WHO’s asse

It has been almost 1,000 days since the first case of COVID-19 was reported from Wuhan, China, at the end of December 2019. The unprecedented pandemic swept the world. Humanity fought back fiercely. The world now appears to have an upper hand over the novel coronavirus as borders are crossed and masks are taken off. However, a global expert on immune therapies and vaccines says the COVID-19 pandemic is not done yet. “Everyone wishes (the pandemic) would go away but it really hasn’t

Hyundai Motor Group and KT have decided to exchange shares worth about 750 billion won ($541 million) to strengthen their partnership in the future mobility sector, officials said Wednesday. According to the two companies, Hyundai Motor Group will acquire 7.7 percent of KT’s treasury stock while KT will acquire 1.04 percent of Hyundai Motor Group’s treasury stock and 1.46 percent of Hyundai Mobis’ shares. The two companies decided to join hands in upgrading future mobility te

SK Broadband has decided to invest $4 million (5.5 billion won) in US collaboration platform developer Swit as the company seeks to boost its competitiveness in the business-to-business sector, the South Korean internet service provider said Wednesday. On top of the investment, SK Broadband said the company will become the sole distributor of Swit in the domestic market while pushing for collaboration businesses including new products that will integrate its message and fax services with Swit&r

A committee of experts said Tuesday that the algorithm of Kakao Mobility’s taxi-hailing application -- Kakao T -- does not favor its affiliated cabs known as Kakao T Blue in the process of matching passengers with taxi drivers. The experts’ analysis came amid the Fair Trade Commission’s ongoing case against Kakao Mobility over allegations that the ride-calling app operator intentionally assigned passengers to its affiliated cabs first. Denying the allegations, the company dis

Kakao Entertainment -- a content subsidiary of South Korean IT giant Kakao -- has launched Tapas Entertainment to accelerate the expansion of its content businesses in North America, the company said Monday. Tapas Entertainment was established after a merger between Tapas Media, the first webtoon platform in North America, and Radish Media, a leading US web novel company, was completed on Aug. 5, according to Kakao Entertainment. Kakao Entertainment acquired the two companies in May last year

Coway is showcasing its latest lineup of air and water purifiers at Europe’s largest home appliances tech show IFA 2022, the South Korean company said Friday. Coway’s on-display products at the event’s exhibition booth in Berlin include 14 air purifiers and eight water purifiers with the newest air purifiers Coway Airmega taking the spotlight. “The Coway Airmega range is consistently recognized as the best-in-class, earning status as an Amazon USA top air purifier brand