The government said Friday it would spend 7.5 trillion won ($7 billion) to support the biohealth sector by 2022 aggressively.

The Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy launched “Industrial Innovation 2020 Platform” with private companies and experts to discuss cooperative measures to accelerate private sector-driven industrial innovation and growth.

According to the ministry, the government will invest 1.4 trillion won in the biohealth field this year, 1.4 trillion won in 2019, and 4.7 trillion won between 2020 and 2022. The massive investment will generate about 5,200 jobs as well, the government said.

To support the healthcare industry, the government will start health checkups of the chronically ill within this year. Next year, Seoul will introduce the customized health check services based on people’s genome information. By 2020, the government plans to standardize medical data of 30 million Koreans.

Experts in the medical and pharmaceutical sector said there would be a new anticancer agent for the first time in Korea this year. Drugmakers aim to develop and release a new medicine for hyperlipidemia and chronic renal failure by next year and build a globally-competitive vaccine production facility by 2020.

Medical device makers plan to build a test certification facility within this year and finish developing 3-D bioprinting equipment for skin generation by 2019. Also, they are to complete the artificial intelligence (AI)-based medical imaging diagnostic system by 2020.

With the industry’s cooperation, the government said it would preemptively respond to demographic changes under low birth rates and aging and facilitate massive medical information and ICT technology to build big data, in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Welfare. In doing so, the government aims to secure global competitiveness in healthcare and new drug development.

Through the Industrial Innovation 2020 Platform, the government is to spend a total of 160 trillion won in major new industrial projects for the next five years and create 200,000 jobs.

New industrial projects will be carried out for the bio-health sector, electric and autonomous vehicles, new energy businesses, semiconductors, displays, and IoT (Internet of Things) appliances.

The government also said it would help new industries expand research and development (R&D) ratio from the current 30 percent to 50 percent in 2022, innovate R&D procedures to accelerate commercialization, and improve patent and standardization regulations.

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