For precision medicine to take root in Korea, the nation needs to make a more positive investment into research and development and cultivate expert workforce, a state agency said.

Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information(KISTI)_{한국과학기술정보연구원} reached the conclusion in its recent “Report on precision medicine services (materialization of personalized treatment through clinical genomic analysis).”

“For the continuous growth of precision medicine service, it is necessary to cultivate export workforce needed in the fields,” the report said. “The government and businesses should enhance the size of professional workers and upgrade their levels by providing pragmatic training in related technological areas, including genomic analysis, and creating jobs.”

It also stressed the need to establish standardized Electronic Medical Record (EMR) system. “To manage an enormous amount of data more systematically and efficiently, they need to build standardized and rack their brains how to make the best use of it and share it with others,” it said.

To establish genome cohort, efforts are also needed to come up with meaningful results even from small scales by clarifying the size and goals of the cohort, the report a12dded.

“To provide precision medicine service, it is imperative to establish genome cohort and technologies to collect and analyze big data. The United States and China have already established large cohorts,” the report said. “As Korea has also secured database through National Health Insurance Service(NHIS)_{국민건강보험공단} and Health Insurance Review & Assessment Service (HIRA)_{건강보험심사평가원}, users can reduce costs if they make the most of the accumulated data efficiently.

Meanwhile, according to the market forecast of precision medicine services (2017) conducted by Frost & Sullivan, a market survey agency, the global precision medicine service market is expected to grow 13.3 percent from $38.4 billion in 2015 to $132.2 billion in 2025. The domestic market is predicted to increase from $230 million won in 2015 to $430 million in 2020.

Korean companies that provide precision medicine services include Macrogen_마크로젠 that has provided genome information and developed a technology by using integrated big data of medical information, DNA Link_{디엔에이링크} that has 40,000 Korean genome database, and Theragen Etex_{테라젠이텍스}, which has provided Oncomics services to find genetic mutation of cancer patients.

hwz@docdocdoc.co.kr

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