KDDF to back over 1,200 drug development projects by 2030 with ₩2.17 tril. in government ​funding

The Korea Drug Development Fund (KDDF) plans to support more than 1,200 new drug development projects by 2030, backed by 2.17 trillion won ($1.5 billion) in government funding over the 10-year national program period.

The announcement came during a press conference Thursday at the Fairmont Ambassador Seoul, marking the fund’s fourth anniversary.

KDDF Director-General Park Yeong-min outlined the organization’s 2025 strategy, emphasizing intensified support for novel drug modalities and high-potential anticancer therapies to bolster Korea’s global competitiveness in pharmaceutical R&D.

“We will concentrate on supporting new targets and new modalities, with a portfolio centered on anticancer therapies,” Park said. “The bottleneck phase—what we call the ‘valley of death’—remains the most critical hurdle for companies, and our role is to ensure they can cross it with sustained global competitiveness.”

Despite ongoing government-wide R&D budget cuts, KDDF will expand its support in 2025.

The number of supported new drug development projects will rise from 78 in 2024 to 128 in 2025. Clinical trial support will also see a 30 percent funding increase to reflect rising development costs.

Under the revised scheme, phase 1 clinical trials can receive up to 4.55 billion won from 3.5 billion won, and phase 2 trials up to 9.1 billion won from 7 billion won. The 2025 pipeline includes 18 early discovery projects, 23 lead compounds, 37 candidate substances, 34 preclinical, 10 phase 1, and six phase 2 trials.

→ Read the full article on [Korea Biomedical Review]