Korea’s Clinical Trial Landscape In 2022: Approvals Fall To Pre-COVID Levels

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The Pink Sheet takes an infographic look at South Korea's clinical trial trends in 2022 to illustrate how the country's biopharma R&D is developing and how activities are recovering in the post-pandemic situation. One key takeaway is that approvals for trial starts have fallen back to pre-COVID levels, suggesting a falling off of activity related to drugs and vaccines for the virus.

clinical trials
Clinical Trials For Both Domestic And Foreign Drugs Drop • Source: Shutterstock

The number of clinical trial approvals across all development phases in South Korea in 2022 sank to the level of before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2019 - but despite the drop, the country’s global ranking in terms of number of such permissions improved a notch, marking its best-ever placing.

According to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety’s data for clinical trial approvals during the calendar year, the country ranked fifth globally in terms of sponsor-led study registrations, up from sixth the previous year

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