Food and drug safety ministry opens global bio conference in Seoul

The food and drug safety ministry opened the 2026 Global Bio Conference in Seoul on Wednesday, bringing together approximately 5,000 experts from regulatory agencies, pharmaceutical companies and academia.

Held at the Grand InterContinental Parnas in Gangnam-gu, the annual gathering focuses on aligning regulatory frameworks with rapid developments in artificial intelligence and advanced biologics to ensure new technologies reach patients faster.

The conference features a newly established session titled "GBC Special: K-Bio Innovation Leaders Talk," where domestic business executives will share their experiences regarding global market entry and the challenges of scaling innovation.

Over the next two days, participants will engage in specialized forums covering vaccine safety management, supply chain resilience, and the transition toward non-animal testing methods. Specific agendas include sharing overseas regulatory experiences on post-approval vaccine safety, discussing antibody drug development using AI, and strategizing stable medicine supply chains.

Regulatory authorities from the United States, Europe and Japan are scheduled to hold cooperation meetings with their Korean counterparts to harmonize review processes for gene recombinant drug products. The ministry will also host one-on-one meetings between domestic firms and regulators from Canada, Japan and Singapore to support overseas expansion.

"The era has come where the speed of connecting innovative possibilities to actual results determines competitiveness," Oh Yoo-kyung, the minister of food and drug safety, said during the opening ceremony. "Through science-based regulatory innovation and active global regulatory cooperation, we will firmly support K-bio's innovation and entry into the world market."

Baek Young-ok, head of the Korea Association of Biopharmaceutical Industry, expressed hope that the event would serve as a catalyst for local technologies to enter overseas markets more rapidly.