사진 확대
“Radioactive therapy (RLT) is like a ‘comprehensive art’ that needs to be tightly intertwined from basic science to hospitals and medical staff to radioactive material production, logistics and regulation. I think South Korea already has a solid foundation.”
Yoo Byung-jae, CEO of Novartis Korea, recently met with Mail Business and explained the meaning of the memorandum of understanding (MOU) signed with the Ministry of Health and Welfare to build an RLT ecosystem. Novartis plans to invest about 140 billion won to build RLT manufacturing facilities and advanced cold chain logistics networks in Korea, and expand the number of RLT-administered hospitals to 30 from the current 10. It also fosters professional researchers.
◆ RLT Will Be New Cancer Treatment Option
RLT has begun to attract attention as a next-generation anticancer platform as Novartis’ metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer treatment “Fluvicto” has grown into a blockbuster with sales of $2 billion (about 2.7 trillion won) last year. Fluvicto and neuroendocrine tumor treatment “Rutatera” are also approved in Korea. Currently, domestic supplies are produced in Europe, and when domestic production facilities are established, the company plans to produce high-demand fluvicto first.
CEO Yoo asked to pay attention to the expansion of access to treatment for Korean patients. This is why not only manufacturing facilities but also logistics networks and administration hospitals are to be expanded together in Korea. He said, “We considered areas that could provide new treatment options to patients who did not receive sufficient benefits from existing chemotherapy and increase the competitiveness of healthcare in Korea, and RLT was the point where the two met.”
“The biggest meaning of domestic production is that patients can be treated when they need it, and medical staff can accumulate RLT clinical experience more smoothly,” he said. “If clinical trials for new carcinomas are conducted faster in Korea, patients can also have wider opportunities to access innovative treatments early.”
The process of selecting Korea as an investment hub for RLT was not smooth. In Korea, the government had to explain to the government the need to foster RLT among various next-generation treatment technologies such as antibody drug conjugates (ADC) and gene therapy drugs. Novartis headquarters needed to persuade why South Korea should be put on the strategic priority list.
“Korea has a medical staff and hospital infrastructure that has accumulated considerable RLT treatment experience through prostate cancer and neuroendocrine tumor treatment,” CEO Yoo said. “We emphasized the environment to actively accept these strengths and new innovative technologies to the headquarters, and persuaded that Korea has sufficient capacity and potential to grow RLT.”
However, as global pharmaceutical companies such as Roche and Eli Lilly have recently come up with large-scale domestic investment plans, some say Novartis’ investment of 140 billion won is relatively small. CEO Yoo stressed that as each company has different criteria for calculating the size of the investment, attention should be paid to the scalability of the RLT ecosystem to be built through this investment.
“The amount of investment disclosed by Novartis is directly related to RLT, such as manpower, education, and center expansion, and the scale may change if clinical research, startup cooperation, and manpower investment are included,” he said. “As it is important for the bio industry to create a foundation for platforms and talents to gather rather than initial investment, RLT should also see future scalability and ripple effects rather than investment size.”
◆ Cooperation with domestic companies is also possible
It also left open the possibility of cooperation with domestic companies. Domestic pharmaceutical and bio companies such as SK Biopharmaceuticals are also selecting RLT as a next-generation growth engine and developing related treatments and securing technologies. CEO Yoo said, “RLT is a platform that combines several elements rather than a simple competitive structure, so there are various areas for cooperation.” “It will be possible to strengthen the clinical capacity of hospitals or jointly research and develop specific radioactive isotopes.”
Radiotherapy (RLT)
A treatment that combines radioactive isotopes with substances that find specific targets for cancer cells to attack only cancer cells. Long-term storage is difficult due to the half-life of radioactive substances, and it must be closely linked from production to transportation and patient administration.
[Reporter Wang Hae Na]