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According to Yonhap News,

(SEOUL=Yonhap News) On June 16, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE) announced that KOTRA and the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (KoreaBIO) signed a letter of intent (LOI) with AstraZeneca for further cooperation on development of the Korea's bio-health industry.

AstraZeneca – a merger between Swedish pharmaceutical firm Astra and UK-based Zeneca in 1999 – is world’s 11th largest pharmaceutical company.

AstraZeneca chairman Leif Johansson previously announced its plans to invest USD 630 million (KRW 740 billion) over the next five years for research cooperation in new drugs, nurturing R&D professionals, and improving access to health care at the Korea-Sweden Business Summit held in Stockholm, Sweden on June 14.

As a follow-up measure, AstraZeneca, KOTRA and the KoreaBio signed a LOI on June 15 at AstraZeneca's new production base in Sweden.

Minister Sung Yun-mo of MOTIE said, "We expect active cooperation between AstraZeneca which has experiences in new drug development and successful global expansion and Korea which has technological competencies and workforce, thus helping Korea's bio-health industry secures global competitiveness."

AstraZeneca chairman Leif Johansson said, "As Korea has excellent resources including global-level researchers in the bio-health industry, it has promising potential for growth globally," adding that "We welcome the Korean government's strategy for the bio-health industry, which will be accelerating innovation through cooperation between the industry, hospitals, academia and government."

AstraZeneca is intended to devise detailed implementation plans and sign MOU with KOTRA and KoreaBio in the later half of this year.

eun@yna.co.kr

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Source Text

Source: Yonhap News (June 16, 2019)

** This article was translated from Korean.