SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s medical community is escalating its confrontation with the Lee Jae-myung administration and the National Assembly over a set of health-care policy proposals that physicians argue threaten patient safety and undermine established medical standards. At the center of the dispute are three initiatives: mandatory ingredient-based prescriptions, stricter oversight of [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 18 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) on Monday launched a new centralized platform designed to bring unprecedented transparency to financial interactions between pharmaceutical and medical device companies and healthcare professionals. The “Expense Report Management System,” formally opening Nov. 17, is the country’s first unified public database allowing [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) on Friday unveiled a new six-point set of diabetes prevention guidelines, urging the public to adopt healthier daily habits as the country observes World Diabetes Day. Diabetes — caused by insufficient insulin production or impaired insulin function — remains one of the [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea will begin publicly disclosing detailed lists of harmful substances contained in tobacco products starting next year, as part of its expanded efforts to strengthen public health protections. The Ministry of Health and Welfare and the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said Thursday that the decision was approved [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 13 (Korea Bizwire) — A new survey has found that South Korean doctors work more than 2,300 hours a year on average, prompting calls from the medical community for more accurate assessments of working conditions before the government determines future medical school quotas. At a conference hosted Wednesday by the Korean Medical Association’s Research [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 11 (Korea Bizwire) — The South Korean government’s plan to reform how medical clinics are paid for lab tests has sparked strong opposition from doctors, who say the changes threaten their income and overlook the realities of clinical care. The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced Monday that it will end the decades-old practice [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea plans to invest more than 900 billion won, or about $622 million, over the next seven years to develop advanced medical devices that officials described as “game-changing,” the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Resources said Wednesday. Under the initiative, which runs from 2025 through 2030, the government will [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — As the South Korean government tightens oversight of new weight-loss drugs such as Wegovy and Mounjaro to curb misuse, some users are sidestepping domestic restrictions by traveling to Japan for easier access. Despite recent price stabilization in the domestic market, a growing number of South Koreans are turning to Japanese [...]
SEOUL, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — The next wave of obesity treatments is expected to center on multi-action drugs and oral formulations, according to a new report by global pharmaceutical research firm IQVIA, as drugmakers race to overcome the limitations of current blockbusters such as Novo Nordisk’s Wegovy and Eli Lilly’s Mounjaro. The two companies currently [...]
BUSAN, Nov. 5 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korean researchers have scientifically identified the psychopathological traits of “Hwabyung,” a culturally specific mental disorder long recognized in Korea and listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic standards. Busan National University announced that the study, published on October 30 in the BioPsychoSocial Medicine journal, provides the first systematic clinical [...]