Bo-eun leads the digital content team. She has covered foreign affairs, North Korea, tech, economy and gender issues at The Korea Times. She did a short stint at the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, where she obtained a new perspective on news production and life. Small sources of joy for her are lounging in the sun, having a good latte and swimming.
Bio firms raising alert over vaccine tech theft
Researchers work on vaccine development at SK Bioscience's lab in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, last October. Courtesy of SK Bioscience
By Kim Bo-eun
Chinese entities engaging in 'illicit activities' to acquire key data
By Kim Bo-eun
Korea's largest organization of bio firms is issuing warnings against practices by Chinese entities attempting to steal technology vital to COVID-19 vaccines amid the pandemic.
Concerns are growing as governments and private companies are rushing to secure patented technology on developing vaccines, some of which are willing to engage in “illicit activities” to acquire key data.
The Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (Korea Bio) alerted its 400 member firms last Friday about the ongoing offense against mRNA vaccine-related biotech companies here, by unspecified third parties.
The organization said member companies have become the primary targets for various forms of attempts to obtain their trade secrets. These attempts have been seen in the poaching of employees by offering a significantly higher level of pay. Technology theft has also taken place through cyberattacks and phony offers from paper companies. The lobby group notified member companies via email about the latest incidents, and warned them to take precautionary measures.
Korea Bio said that a Chinese company hired an employee of a local firm who was a key R&D worker, by offering two to three times the worker's annual pay. By hiring the employee, the Chinese entity was able to acquire documents on key technologies. The Chinese firm ended up producing the same and other similar products, which resulted in the local company's sales and market share falling.
The bio organization said that another Chinese entity had attempted to steal key documents by establishing a paper company. The entity reached out to a local bio firm, proposing to set up a joint venture. The Korean company signed a contract but later found out that the Chinese firm had been a paper company that had been misrepresenting itself.
Korea Bio also added that local bio firms have become subject to cyberattacks by entities located overseas. These cyberattacks began in the latter half of last year via malicious emails, ransomware and attacks on websites. The organization said key documents containing technological secrets have been stolen through cyberattacks.
Theft of vaccine-related documents has been targeting not only local firms but entities around the world. The European Medicines Agency (EMA) stated last December that vaccine documents of Pfizer and BioNTech, which makes one of Pfizer's vaccines, were obtained by cyberattackers. The EMA said that the cyberattack led to the theft of local biopharmaceutical giant Celltrion's documents containing information on its Regkirona COVID-19 treatment.
"Given the fact that we hold key technologies, we are keenly observing the situation for possible problems," a representative of a major biopharmaceutical firm said, Sunday.
The latest attempts have led the government to devise measures for protecting local technologies related to key items, such as vaccines, semiconductors and electric vehicle batteries, which are being treated as matters of national security.
Moves are ongoing to set up a law that will mandate government approval for the sale of a company holding key technologies. Currently, companies with technology that was developed without state R&D support can be sold without any such approval process. Government approval is also set to become necessary when companies based abroad make investments in local entities that hold crucial technologies.
In addition, lawmakers are seeking to set up legal grounds that will enable local companies to set up contracts with R&D personnel, banning them from moving to an overseas-based rival firm.