Domestic production of coronavirus vaccines has been scrapped, experts say, as the country's research and development budget is cut - South Korea

The South Korean government announced that it would cut its research and development (R&D) budget by 14.6%, or 4.6 trillion won (approximately 506,628,820,000 yen) compared to the previous year, for the first time in 33 years, causing concern.
The suspension of research is becoming a reality. The Ministry of Science, Technology, and Information Communication is working on the ``New Variant Infectious Disease Response Platform'' in which major research institutes such as the government-affiliated Korea Institute of Biotechnology (Hansung Institute) and Seoul University participate.
The budget for the ``System Core Technology Development Project'' has been reduced to 2.7 billion won (approximately 297.02 million yen), which is 80% less than planned. Regarding this, Dr. Jeong Dae-gyun of Hansei Hospital said, ``Last year,
As part of the platform business team, we achieved results that exceeded our goals, publishing 93 excellent papers, and non-clinical trials were just around the corner, but due to budget cuts, it looks like our research will end there."
Dr. Chung said the suspension of the domestic messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine development project is particularly disappointing. The budget required to proceed with non-clinical trials was 2 billion won (approx.
220,010,000 yen) reduced by 80%. Given that the personnel costs alone are estimated by the project team to be 750 million won (approximately 82.6 million yen), research has virtually no choice but to be halted.
Dr. Chung said, ``It will be difficult to reduce personnel costs,'' but added, ``Given the possibility of the spread of various infectious diseases, including respiratory diseases that originated in China, we are looking for ways to continue our research even under difficult circumstances.''
I will continue to do so.”