seoul convetion bureau

· B2B exhibitions, IR forums and export consultations in the life science industry

· Booths for information exchange, partnerships, and investment deals

· 20 global buyers from 11 countries invited to 1:1 online export consultation

· 54 business meetings attracted export deals worth 5.1 million USD 

Korea Life Science Week 2022, a two-day exhibition and conference for presenting new technologies and trends in the pharmaceutical, bio, and life science sectors, was visited by over 3,300 people. Despite being a specialized exhibition for professionals in the industry held during weekdays, the conference venue was filled with participants. 

Korea Life Science Week 2022 was held successfully from November 7th to 8th at COEX with a total of 3,357 participants. Seoul City, Chungbuk Province, Korean Fund for Regenerative Medicine, and Regenerative Medicine Acceleration Foundation were among the many sponsors and participants of the event. In addition to booths on advanced regenerative medicine, medical combination products, AI & big data and digital therapeutics, and next-generation pharmaceuticals, conferences and forums, seminars, and 1:1 online business meetings were held and gained much attention from the participants. 

△ Entrance of Korea Life Science Week 2022 (provided by Korea Life Science Week Secretariat)

The venue was set up on the first floor of COEX. Along with Advanced Regenerative Medicine Zone, Combination Product Zone, Pharma & Bio Venture Startup Zone (Bio Innovation Company Promotion Zone), and Bio-health Partnering & Poster Zone, 135 companies from the advanced regenerative medicine & bio technology, medical device, infrastructure & combination technology, AI & big data, CRO, CMO & CDMO, research & laboratory equipment sectors presented their technologies, products, services, and R&D equipment.

As the main purpose of the event was to introduce new technologies and facilitate partnership deals through B2B meetings rather than installing booths that offer eye-catching demonstrations or marketing promotions, the duration of attendees’ visits indicates how successful the event was. The longer the participants stayed at the event, the higher the chance of them having in-depth and meaningful discussions. The organizer said that “although the event has only celebrated its third anniversary, more buyers are coming from a wider range of industries and their visits are getting longer,” and that “considering it is an industry-specific confex, it has great potential.”

△ Event hall of Korea Life Science Week 2022 (provided by Korea Life Science Week Secretariat)

IR partnering (presentations and/or promotional activities of companies for investors) that connects startups developing new technologies to financial institutions is one of the key programs that the Korea Life Science Week is aiming to offer in the long term. 

In the second half of this year, some of the largest startups and bio venture companies in the bio-health industry engaged in networking with Korean pharma & bio companies and investors such as VCs to find promising business items and shared commitment for investment. Encouraging exchanges took place at Promising Bio Venture Startup Investment Forum and R&D-oriented Superior Pharmaceutical and Bio Company IR (IPIR 2022). Over 20 businesses made IR presentations on their technologies and business items, followed by investment consulting sessions with around 150 professionals from investment companies, financial institutions, asset management firms, analysts, and underwriters.

Biz-Partnering would be an ideal opportunity for developers and/or startups to meet investors, and for investors to discover businesses with great potential. The coronavirus pandemic helped people see that viruses constantly evolve and threaten the lives of people across the world. And as tracking the evolution or mutations of such viruses and developing vaccines and treatments require extensive information on various science technologies, Biz-Partnering will continue to broaden its horizon and invite more startups and investors to have meaningful exchanges and discussions.

△ Event hall of Korea Life Science Week 2022 (provided by Korea Life Science Week Secretariat)

Throughout the two-day event, 68 conference and forum sessions were held where attendees shared ideas and information about high-end technologies. From advanced biotech to combination products, digital therapeutics, and next-generation pharmaceuticals, many popular topics were covered at the sessions. On the first day of the event, the National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation and the Regulatory Strategy Center for Combination Product held the 2nd MFDS-ACRS Conference under the theme of “Collaboration Key to Advancing Regulatory Science & Practice” to present regulations, technological development trends, and business strategies relating to combination products. 

On the same day, the Korea Drug Research Association (KDRA) held the Pharmaceutical and Bio-health Statistics Forum and Innovation Policy Forum. The Pharmaceutical and Bio-health Statistics Forum and Innovation Policy Forum was held under the theme of “the Present of Pharma & Bio Industry and Future Strategies Based on Qualitative Data”, which was about designing strategies for innovative and global-scale growth of the Korean bio-health industry by using internationally collected data from various fields such as open innovation and clinical medicine. The theme of the Innovation Policy Forum was “Business model Development Strategy for Global Growth of the Bio-health Industry”, with an aim to facilitate sharing of business model development strategies in the fields of digital therapeutics, combination products, AI & big data, advanced biotech, and orphan drugs.

On the second day of the event, the 3rd Advanced Regenerative Medicine Development Strategy Forum was held and organized by the Council for Advanced Regenerative Medicine (CARM) and Kyungyon Exhibition Corp. respectively. Under the theme of “Domestic and Global Environment Change and Development Trends in the Field of Advanced Regenerative Medicine and Advanced Biomedicine”, the forum facilitated discussions on the U.S.’ bio engineering and manufacturing initiatives and executive orders’ status, direction, and response strategies, measures to integrate clinical research on advanced regenerative medicine and certification of advanced biomedicine, and Exosome-based therapeutics development trends.

△ Online export consultation inviting international buyers on Korea Life Science Week 2022

(provided by Korea Life Science Week Secretariat)

Kyungyon Exhibition Corp., the organizer, also hosted 1:1 online business meetings with international buyers to help promote export of SMEs in the bio & pharma and medical industries. 20 buyers from 11 countries including UAE, Myanmar, Singapore, Oman, Israel, India, Indonesia, Qatar, Turkey, the Philippines, and Hong Kong came and joined 54 sessions throughout the event. The exports negotiated during the sessions are worth 5.1 million USD in total.

Korea Life Science Week 2023 will be held on November 14th to 16th next year at COEX.

The key to success of specialized confex is catering to exhibitors and participants’ needs

[Interview] Young Soo Kim, CEO of Kyungyon Exhibition Corp., the organizer of Korea Life Science Week

△ CEO Young-soo Kim of KYUNGYON Exhibition Corp.

· Kyungyon Exhibition Corp. hosted the third Korea Life Science Week in partnership with Seoul

· Paradigm shift in the pharma & bio industry, “for future foods”

· Seoul, the no. 1 destination for new drug development & MICE events

The Korea Life Science Week, an event presenting all the cutting-edge R&D technologies in the life science sector, is a “confex” (a type of MICE event that combines conference and exhibition) organized by Kyungyon Exhibition Corp., a PEO (professional exhibition organizer). Despite being a specialized confex for industry professionals only, over 3,300 participants came to the event held from November 7th to 8th. 

Instead of product promotions and sales, the event is organized around business meetings for presenting technologies of exhibitor companies and eventually help them land partnership deals. That is why the duration of participants’ stay is more important than mere number of attendees. This year marked the third Korea Life Science Week, and the participants are staying longer every year. 

Mr. Young Soo Kim, CEO of Kyungyon Exhibition Corp., stated that “the key to successful and sustainable events is constantly listening to what the industry players want and reflecting their needs in the planning and execution.” Here are some secrets behind the success of the Korea Life Science Week, one of the major specialized confexs.

- What kind of event is the Korea Life Science Week?

“It’s an annual confex held to help academics and business professionals in the K-bio industry to come together and exchange knowledge, information, and ideas. It’s particularly significant in that it introduces businesses with great potential and facilitates business collaborations. Popular topics in the K-bio industry are covered at B2B Exhibition, IR Investment Forum, conferences, and online business meetings to draw attention of industry experts.”

- There were more than 100 exhibitors from the life science and bio-health sectors.

“The focus of the Korean pharma and bio industry is now on biomedicine and developing new drugs. To keep up with this industry trend, the Korea Life Science Week featured Advanced Regenerative Bio Zone that presented cell therapy products that could help treat rare and/or incurable diseases with excellent efficacy and less side effects as well as Combination Product Zone that showed combination products, which are drugs, quasi-drugs, and medical devices combined together. In addition, Open Innovation Zone featured R&D academia-business partner organizations and startups, promoting the possibility of new drug development. Booths were also set up to present big data & AI technologies and other Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies for finding potential ingredients for new drugs and analyzing clinical data.”

- Convention is a huge part of the Korea Life Science Week. Is there a specific reason to this arrangement?

“The Korea Life Science Week is a B2B event that combines exhibition and conference. Exhibitions focus on business promotion and marketing whereas conventions have more seminars on latest issues. As these two are complementary, combining exhibition and convention could have a synergistic effect. This year, more than 1,500 experts came to the conferences and forums to learn about the trends of the global life science sector. Kyungyon Exhibition Corp. sought advice from a Conference & Forum Advisory Committee in selecting topics and inviting guest speakers. To host conferences and forums on a regular basis and on a more professional level, our company continues to work in partnership with research and academic organizations in the life science industry while working on conference operations, promotion, and resource support for successful exhibition of our partner associations.”

- What is the key focus of this year’s event?

“This year, we want to discover more hidden gems in the industry. That’s why Kyungyon is hosting and supporting IR Investment Forum annually to help venture companies and startups with potential to land investment deals. The Korean government is providing extensive funding to bio VCs and startups to promote the pharmaceutical and bio industry, one of the three big sectors that Korea is known for. But the VCs at the event most definitely need to secure investment to complete their product development, and they say that there should be an investment event in addition to having exhibition booths. In order to meet such needs of our exhibitors, we talked with pharma & bio organizations specializing in open innovation, which have been continuing from the first year of the Korea Life Science Week to this year. I believe that the Korea Life Science Week could be the largest IR event held in Korea in the second half of the year.”

- Any reason why Korea Life Science Week is held at COEX?

“Seoul has many of the world’s top hospitals and is the no.1 city in new drug development clinical research. Its bio and medical infrastructure make it the perfect destination. In particular, Seoul makes significant amount of investment and support in not only the bio industry but also the MICE sector. While planning for a pharma & bio convention, our proposal won the Seoul Tourism Organization’s 2020 Seoul Exhibition Planning Contest, and we have been lucky enough to use COEX as the venue from the first Korea Life Science Week thanks to the constant support.”

- Anything else you want to share?

“I understand that it’s not easy for a city government to select certain private companies or MICE events and offer support. But I really hope that we could continue to help promote the pharma and bio industry as it will be one of the most key sectors for our future generations. I also wish more companies in the industry join us in the effort of making investment and providing funding.”