2021 MOHW budget KRW 90.15 tln--KRW 131 bln on COVID-19

Reinforcing public health risk response, expanding public medicine, investing on infectious disease response

South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW) has finalized next year’s budget plan with 90 trillion won.

 

The state funding for National Health Insurance (NHI) has been raised to 9.5 trillion won.

 

131.4 billion won was allocated on providing support on R&D seeking COVID-19 treatment and vaccine.

 

Moreover, the state-led new drug R&D program’s budget has increased by 15.1 billion won, and pharmaceutical industry development support was increased by 1.1 billion won to 16.1 billion won.

 

MOHW stated on Sept.

 

1 that 90.15 trillion won, with 9.2 percent increase compared to this year, has been appropriated for the 2021 budget plan to mainly enhance public health risk response capacity, expand public medicine facility and improve platform for the ‘Inclusive State.’ The government’s projected overall expenditure in 2021, passed by the Cabinet meeting on Sept.

 

1, would grow by 8.5 percent from this year to 555.8 trillion won.

 

Within the budget plan, MOHW’s projected overall expenditure is to reach 90.15 trillion won, with 9.2 percent increase from this year.

 

The projected figure would take up 16.2 percent of the overall government expenditure.

 

◆Enhancing public health risk response capacity—R&D on infectious diseases: The government has allocated budget to assist developing COVID-19 treatment and vaccine, and to upgrade equipments for infectious disease control.

 

Total budget of 131.4 billion won, consisting of 62.7 billion won on treatment and 68.7 billion won on vaccine, were finalized.

 

Additionally, 16.5 billion won would be injected for upgrading infectious disease control equipment and testing kit, and developing relevant technology.

 

.The budget was approved for the use of building R&D infrastructure responding against novel infectious diseases like COVID-19

 

.The government has cleared a budget of 5.2 billion won to continue projecting severity of prognosis and developing treatment through analyzing clinical data from confirmed COVID-19 cases

 

.5.8 billion won was approved to operate antiviral pharmaceutical test lab, while the budget for operating public vaccine development and support center has been expanded from 5 billion won to 13.6 billion won

 

.Also, a budget of 3.3 billion won was given to constructing facility and laboratory infrastructure for the National Infectious Disease Research Institute

 

.◆Preparing for the future health and welfare—fostering K-Bio: MOHW has decided to expand R&D and financial investment on infectious disease, regenerative medicine, data, and new drug

 

.The ministry’s major healthcare R&D budget plan allocated 791.2 billion won for next year, increasing 49.9 percent compared to 527.8 billion won in 2019

 

.Innovative new drug R&D support would be also provided to nurture Korean-made new drug development

 

.15.1 billion won would be injected to push state-led new drug development, covering candidate medicine discovery to commercialization

 

.Meanwhile, 3.3 billion won would be assigned to state-led new anticancer treatment development

 

.The ministry budgeted 6.8 billion won on training specialists on bioprocessing and AI-basis new drug development and clinical trial

 

.More specifically, 3 billion won on training Korean National Institute for Bioprocessing Research and Training (NIBRT) consultant and instructor, 2.1 billion won on biopharmaceutical specialists, 1 billion won on training and promoting AI-basis new drug development and 700 million won were drawn up for the budget

 

.A separate budget plan for promoting regenerative medicine, backed by the Advanced Bio Act, was set

 

.From basic science research like induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) technology for regenerative medicine to developing advanced biopharmaceuticals, rare disease treatment clinical research and relevant R&D would be operated according to the new legislation

 

.Particularly for the regenerative medicine R&D, a budget of 10 billion won on regenerative medicine clinical study, and 6.4 billion won on pan-government regenerative medicine R&D program were set

 

.A big data platform would be built to incorporate public institute data, genome and medical data for the technological innovation in biohealth

 

.And 60.2 billion won would be spent on pan-government medical device R&D program covering from R&D to clinical trial, approval and commercialization

 

.A budget of 5.3 billion won was set for healthcare professionals to conduct clinical evaluation and receive training to use Korean-made medical devices

 

.◆Expanding public medicine: MOHW expanded the state funding for the support on improving medical safety net through NHI coverage enhancement

 

.The publicness of regional medical center would be strengthened as well

 

.The government plans to enhance the infectious disease response capacity of regional medical centers and to expand regional healthcare institutes (from 12 to 15), and provincial healthcare institutes (from 15 to 35)

 

.Also, some of the budget was allocated for the preventive healthcare program, or so-called ‘Korean New Deal.’ As a pilot program, MOHW would expand healthcare centers subject for preventive healthcare program through ICT devices (Bluetooth blood pressure monitor, and blood glucose monitor) currently set as 30 to 80 sites

 

.The healthcare center’s customized healthcare support program via mobile app for high-risk patients with chronic disease would incorporate 160 sites with 20 more sites than this year

 

.Additional human resources for the program would be dispatched as well

 

.◆The Inclusive State—healthcare reimbursement: The government plans to increase the overall NHI reimbursement per beneficiary, currently set at 6.50 trillion won, to 7.23 trillion won with 11.2 percent increase

 

.And by cooperating with NHI, the ministry would continue to enhance healthcare coverage

 

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