South Korea’s Daewoong Pharmaceutical said Monday that it has restructured its research and development units to lend a boost to its new drug development efforts.The Korean pharma company said that its R&D workforce will now work in different project-oriented groups called “extreme teams” designed to achieve specific goals of a particular project. Each team will focus on a different project, and be disbanded once the project ends.As a result, Daewoong’s R&D workforce will be divided into a new d

Industry June 18, 2018

South Korean fintech startup Viva Republic, the maker of money transfer app Toss, said Monday that it has newly raised $40 million in funding from Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC and venture investor Sequoia China. The deal marks the first investment in a Korean startup by GIG and Sequoia China. It also brings Viva Republica’s total investment raised to $116 million, the company said. Launched in 2015, Toss is best known as a peer-to-peer money transfer app that allows users to wire money

Technology June 18, 2018

In South Korea, Naver dominates the internet technology space. Here, the Naver portal website serves as a mainstream hub for just about every web-based activity, ranging from searches and shopping to blogs, news and maps.　However, Naver is outpaced by its foreign rival Google in one key area — videos. Google-owned YouTube is currently Korea’s longest-used app and the primary tool used to share and watch online videos, according to Seoul-based app analytics firm WiseApp. 　With YouTube’s presence

Technology June 17, 2018

Samsung Electronics has reportedly been ordered to pay $400 million to the licensing arm of South Korea’s top science and research university KAIST over infringing a patent related to key semiconductor technology.　A US federal jury in Texas ruled that the Korean tech giant infringed KAIST’s patent related FinFet -- a key transistor technology used to produce processors for mobile phones -- and should pay a fine, according to a Bloomberg report Saturday.Chipmakers Qualcomm and GlobalFoundries wer

Technology June 17, 2018

Kakao, the operator of South Korea’s dominant mobile messenger KakaoTalk, said Thursday that it has acquired a 51 percent stake in Kiwi Plus, a local kids’ smartwatch and smartphone manufacturer.　The Korean mobile technology giant plans to invest around 10 billion won ($9.23 million) in making the acquisition, aimed at strengthening Kakao’s portfolio of hardware and internet of things technologies. Kakao Kid's Smartphone (Kiwi Plus)Founded in 2013, Kiwi Plus is a hardware manufacturer best-known

Technology June 14, 2018

South Korea’s financial regulators are planning to look into the financial statements of contract drug manufacturer Samsung BioLogics prior to 2015, the fiscal year at which the company posted a controversial 1.9 trillion won ($1.77 billion) in net profit by switching its accounting standards.   　It signals a shift in the investigative direction of the Securities and Futures Commission, the auditing unit of the Financial Services Commission, which appears to be seeking a midway solution that can

Industry June 14, 2018

South Koreans are big on food delivery. With just a phone call, food like fried chicken and jjajangmyeon, or Chinese black bean noodles, can be brought to one’s doorstep. 　While much of this dynamic still stands, Korea’s food delivery market is quickly changing and expanding in scope, mainly riding on demographic shifts and going mobile.　Food deliveries are becoming more popular than ever, fueled by single-person households who prefer food deliveries to eating out alone. Smartphones have also st

Technology June 13, 2018

Social media giant Twitter has launched a special emoji to mark the historic US-North Korea summit taking place in Singapore, on projections of an upturn in social media traffic.　Ahead of the historic meeting between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, Twitter encouraged users following the event to use a series of hashtags to activate a new special emoji.“US President @realdonaldtrump will meet North Korea Chairman Kim Jong-un on 12 June in Singapore,” said a tweet fr

Technology June 12, 2018

A South Korean food technology startup has launched a new restaurant guide introducing the top-rated restaurants in North Korea to wish for peace and the reunification of the Korean Peninsula, as the historic US-North Korea Summit was held in Singapore on Tuesday. 　SikSin, Korea’s leading restaurant recommendation and rating app, said it has launched the world’s first-ever “North Korea’s best restaurant guide” on its mobile app and website.The SikSin platform now has a new “North Korea category”

Technology June 12, 2018

Naver, the operator of South Korea’s most widely used portal website, will disallow users from posting the same comment multiple times on a news article, as part of continued efforts to revamp its news display system and prevent macro automation software. 　The move is the latest in Naver’s series of responses to an opinion rigging scandal in which a power blogger named “Druking” and politicians used a computer program to artificially ramp up the number of clicks on the “agree” button for specifi

Technology June 12, 2018

SINGAPORE — In Singapore, you will most likely spot green-colored vehicles or motorbikes roaming the streets in every part of the city. Though they may be an unfamiliar sight to foreign tourists, they’re a part of the everyday mobility scene in the city-state as well as most parts of Southeast Asia.　　Meet Grab, the largest ride-hailing app in Southeast Asia. Based in Singapore, Grab’s fleet of private vehicles, taxis and motorbikes currently dominates the ride-hailing market in eight countries i

Technology June 11, 2018

SWORDS, Ireland — With a complex system of metal pipes filling up the space, trucks carrying large tanks of marked substances and chimneys belching out puffs of white, the facility seems like a typical fine chemicals plant from the outside.However, it is not brewing chemicals for heavy industry, but the baseline ingredients for life-saving medications developed by some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies including Bristol-Myers Squibb, AstraZeneca and Pfizer.Meet SK biotek Ireland, a

Industry June 6, 2018

South Korea’s major biopharmaceutical companies have headed to Boston this week to take part in the 2018 Bio International Convention, with aims to promote their technologies to interested partners and potentially strike new deals.　The four-day conference, which kicks off Monday, is considered one of the world’s biggest biotech and pharma industry events. This year’s edition is taking place in Boston, a hub of top-class biotech research institutes, healthcare corporations, startups and investors

Industry June 3, 2018

WeWork, the world’s largest provider of co-working spaces, officially introduced its new startup acceleration space WeWorks Labs in South Korea on Thursday, pledging to help early-stage startups here grow and expand globally.WeWork Labs is a shared working space for young startups, where tenants can access a variety of acceleration programs, networking support as well as consulting and mentorship from strategic investors, venture capitals and veteran entrepreneurs.Korea is the first country in A

Technology May 31, 2018

South Korean biopharma company Celltrion said Wednesday that it has resubmitted its Rituxan-referencing biosimilar Truxima to the US Food and Drug Administration for a second review, resuming approval procedures that were recently halted due to manufacturing issues observed by the FDA.　Celltrion also plans to resubmit Herzuma -- its biosimilar referencing Herceptin -- to the US FDA in June. As the US regulator’s approval procedures are completed within six month from the date of resubmission, Ce

Industry May 30, 2018