The Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) said it would convene a public hearing Thursday as the final stage of establishing a plan to nurture and support the pharmaceutical industry.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare plans to hold a public hearing on the second five-year comprehensive plan to nurture and support the pharmaceutical industry, at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, nearby the South Gate in downtown Seoul, Thursday.

The forum intends to collect opinions from experts and the public for the second five-year comprehensive plan to assist and promote the pharmaceutical sector, as outlined by the Minister of Health and Welfare Park Neung-hoo at the economic ministers’ meeting in December.

The agenda items to be discussed at the hearing can be summed up as three primary strategies.

The three are establishing R&D response systems for high-cost healthcare issues such as dementia and infectious diseases, ensuring innovation growth in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and supporting future industries such as pharmaceuticals and bio-medical equipment manufacturing. The ministry also outlined nine specific tasks to achieve these strategies.

If implemented as planned, the measures are expected to increase Koreans’ life expectancy from 73.2 to 76, increase jobs related to the healthcare industry from 170,000 to 270,000, and reduce illness-related economic losses from 8.8 percent of the GDP to 8 percent.

“Healthcare R&D will expand its role to protect the health of the public and solve the national health and medical problems such as dementia, mental health, and infectious diseases,” said Yang Sung-il, director general of the Health Industry Bureau. “The ministry plans to establish a basic plan for an R&D support system for healthcare to ensure constant innovation, focusing on researchers.”

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