News & Announcements
Title KU Medicine and SK Bioscience Establish Industry-Academia Cooperation System to Cope with Infectious Diseases
Hospital KU Medicine
Date 2021-12-02
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Korea University Medicine and SK Bioscience
Establish Industry-Academia Cooperation System
to Cope with Infectious Diseases
Korea University Medicine and SK Bioscience (President, Jae-Yong Ahn)
will establish an industry-academia cooperation system to proactively respond
to new viral infectious diseases.
Korea University Medicine announced that it
held a ceremony at Korea University Inchon Memorial Hall to sign an industry-academia
cooperation agreement with SK Bioscience in order to establish a system to
monitor and respond to global infectious diseases.
Chairman Jae-Ho Kim of the Korea University Foundation, President &
CEO Young-Hoon Kim of University Medical Affairs, Vice Chairman Chang-Won Choi of
SK Discovery, and President Jae-Yong Ahn of SK Bioscience attended the event to
discuss the need for conducting preemptive research and quickly responding to
pandemics in the future.
The main tasks of the partnership include
establishing a system to monitor infectious diseases at home and abroad,
conducting research on vaccine development, and training personnel to become experts
in related fields. The two parties will conduct joint research over the next
three years taking advantage of mutual capabilities.
For each task, Korea University Medicine will make
project proposals and plans, conduct research, and present the results, while
SK Bioscience will provide support. In addition, SK Bioscience plans to
contribute a total of KRW 5 billion for research.
President Ahn of SK Bioscience said, "The
COVID-19 pandemic made us realize the need for preemptive and active
cooperation against infectious diseases. Through this industry-academia partnership,
we will establish a system to cope with the next health crisis that may hit us."
President & CEO Kim of KU Medicine said,
"We are happy to establish this joint venture with SK Bioscience at a time
when systematic preparation for and response to repeated new infectious disease
crises are urgently needed. We will do our best to contribute to humanity by
conducting joint research to establish a virus monitoring system and a vaccine development
platform."
Meanwhile, Korea University Medicine revealed
its research strategy for the the development of infectious disease vaccines
working with top-notch experts at its Mediscience Park, which opened in October
2021. The Park houses ABSL3 and BSL3 labs, which can be used to test high-risk
viruses. Mediscience Park is expected to facilitate the cooperation between the
two parties.


