Food and drug safety ministry names five winners in public data and AI contest

The food and drug safety ministry said Monday it awarded five projects in its 2026 competition for ideas using its public data and artificial intelligence, with a toxicity-prediction platform taking the top prize of 5 million won ($3,725).

The contest, now in its seventh year, drew 180 entries between April 6 and May 29. Eleven passed a document review to reach the presentation round, where a seven-member public evaluation panel helped pick the five winners.

The top award went to SMART-NAMs, a team that built a platform combining the ministry's public data with life-science datasets and AI to predict and analyse the toxicity of new drugs and cosmetics. The ministry said the platform could help companies assess product safety in advance and give consumers safer products.

Two runner-up prizes of 2.5 million won ($1,862) each went to CODA, which analysed the link between drug-induced cognitive decline and the current regulatory system and proposed ways to improve medicine safety for older adults, and to a medical-device security project that examined software vulnerabilities and hacking risks to help smaller device makers manage security.

Two encouragement prizes of 1 million won ($745) each went to FactFilter, which screens online advertising for false or exaggerated claims, and to Haearae Damda, which provides allergy information for food aimed at infants and young children.