![\"null](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/news-g.v1.20260901.a74391ff82694d18a68fad2dcebae753_P1.jpg\"\/ "\\"Novartis")
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“Korean companies that have won HealthX Challenge Seoul, the open innovation program hosted by Novartis Korea, have drawn cumulative investment approaching 200 billion won,” said Baek Da-som, director of the innovation business division at Novartis Korea. “Our ultimate goal is to help commercialize the work of Korean companies with strengths in information technology and healthcare data, deepening understanding of various diseases and improving the treatment journey for patients.”<\/p>\n
In an interview with The Seoul Economic Daily on the 1st, Baek said Novartis Korea serves as an incubator that designs with partners how to turn their technology into products, because the company understands what patients, medical staff and the healthcare system need. Novartis Korea has run the HealthX Challenge, which identifies promising digital healthcare companies, since 2020 together with the Seoul Metropolitan Government and Seoul Bio Hub.<\/p>\n
3billion (394800) is a leading example of a partnership with Novartis Korea that produced results. After 3billion won HealthX Challenge Seoul in 2021, Novartis Korea worked with the company on a project supporting genetic testing for patients with inherited retinal degenerative diseases. As the project drew a strong response, 3billion signed a contract in 2024 with Novartis’s Australian unit for a diagnostic testing business in inherited eye diseases, and completed an initial public offering the same year. EverEx, which holds technology that measures joint movement with artificial intelligence to support rehabilitation exercise, developed a service that has patients exercise at home following schedules prescribed by medical staff, centered on ankylosing spondylitis, a disease of interest to Novartis. “The reason we could produce these results is that Novartis Korea becomes part of the partner startup and moves together with them,” Baek said. “Our role is to build a business model that can also work with other pharmaceutical companies or corporations.”<\/p>\n
The main purpose of Novartis Korea’s open innovation through the HealthX Challenge is to use Korean companies’ technology to help patients recognize diseases in time and receive appropriate treatment. Novartis sees Korea as an especially good partner because it has companies with strong IT capabilities and users with high digital literacy. “In Korea, healthcare data is relatively well digitized, and users have high digital literacy, so they make good use of these services,” Baek said. “The growth speed of digital healthcare at Korean companies is also exceptional. When we present an idea, we often get an even better counterproposal, and the time it takes to reach commercialization keeps getting shorter.” Baek added: “Korean companies’ AI technology in particular is relatively mature compared with other countries. It is a positive that many companies are taking on digital healthcare startups, which means there are also many success stories.”<\/p>\n
Novartis Korea cited “technology that can be commercialized quickly” as the most important criterion for potential collaboration. “We are mainly looking for companies that can build and launch something with Novartis Korea in a short period, even if it is only a pilot service,” Baek said. “If a pilot project shows good results and response and is judged to have value, Novartis may sign an independent commercialization contract so it can pay to keep using the service, or sign a joint research contract for further study.”<\/p>\n
Novartis is also scouting potential partners in drug development. “Radioligand therapy, antibody technology, cell and gene therapy, precision medicine platforms and AI-based drug discovery technology are Novartis’s main interests,” Baek said. “Korea has emerged not as a mere participant in the global bio ecosystem but as a source of innovation, so Novartis Korea is working to create as many partnership meetings and networking opportunities as possible.” Baek added: “When Novartis reviews a collaboration, it values not only scientific validity and innovation but also the reliability and reproducibility of data that meets global regulatory standards. Along with the potential for global commercialization, it is important that a company or team has the execution capability to communicate smoothly with Novartis.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Korean companies that have won HealthX Challenge Seoul, the open innovation program hosted by Novartis Korea, have drawn…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[127],"tags":[60709,60707,60710,60706,206,59085,60708,8514],"class_list":["post-124040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-novartis","tag-3billion","tag-digital-healthcare","tag-everex","tag-healthx-challenge","tag-novartis","tag-novartis-korea","tag-open-innovation","tag-radioligand-therapy"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ch\/117198772481483622","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}