Korea opens biomanufacturing training center in Incheon as WHO chief visits

The health ministry said Tuesday it opened a hands-on training center for vaccine and biopharmaceutical production at the Global Bio Campus in Songdo, Incheon, with WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus attending the ceremony.

The facility, built with about 23.7 billion won ($17.8 million) in government funding since 2024, occupies roughly 754 pyeong in the industry-academic cooperation building at Yonsei University's international campus. It gives the Global Training Hub for Biomanufacturing, known as GTH-B, its own dedicated practice space for the first time; hands-on instruction had previously been farmed out to five network campuses, including Yonsei's K-NIBRT in Songdo and a pharmaceutical and bio workforce center at Seoul National University in Siheung.

Health Minister Jung Eun-kyeong and Tedros attended the opening along with Kim Jong-cheol, head of the Incheon Free Economic Zone Authority, and Roh Yeon-hong, chairman of the GTH-B support foundation. The two sides unveiled a plaque naming the center's pilot-scale culture training room after the WHO chief, a gesture the ministry said recognizes his push for global health equity and his cooperation with Korea.

The training program has run since February 2022 under a partnership between the ministry and the WHO aimed at narrowing the gap in vaccine access between countries and building domestic production capacity in low- and middle-income nations. Through theory and practice courses, on-site consulting and online classes, it has trained 4,223 people through 2025, including 1,001 trainees from 43 countries in 2022 and 1,033 from 49 countries last year.

"It is encouraging that personnel from low- and middle-income countries are acquiring the knowledge and skills needed for vaccine and biopharmaceutical production in Korea and contributing to strengthening their own countries' production capacity," Jung said. She added that the opening would be a chance to reinforce Korea's role as a hub country for biomanufacturing workforce training.

Roh said the new center is an important opportunity to make the training more substantive and varied, and that the foundation will work with the ministry, the WHO and partner institutions at home and abroad to deliver instruction that can be used on the job.