South Korea

Current Distributors Profiles

Our network has distributors represent manufacturers located both inside and outside of South Korea.  They sell products for both the life science research market as well as the medical diagnostic market.  One of these distributors focuses on Genomics products which include both capital equipment as well as reagents. Other distributors focus more on medical diagnostic and human health.

These distributors use a system of both direct selling to end users and a system subdealers that allows the efficient sales and marketing of product.  Our distributors add value by stocking superior consumables and reagents that end users trust, offering quick and easy sales and delivery service, offer local language technical support in country, and performing product seminar/workshops/webinars.  These distributors also staff a highly knowledgeable field sales team.  Their major customer segments include well-funded research laboratories and Pharma and biotech companies.

South Korea’s distribution system has a mixture of distribution directly to the end user and the use of sub-dealers.  b2b connect has over many years of experience in this market and can help navigate your business in this confusing network. b2b connect has a number of niche distributors in South Korea that we can contact to see which one may be a good fit with your product portfolio.

Market

South Korea has long nurtured multinationals and smaller enterprises, many earning the “Innovative Pharmaceutical Company” designation by showing officials that they possess high R&D capacity for new drug development and are globally competitive. Last year, the ruling Democratic Party introduced a bill in the National Assembly designed to increase the number of innovative pharmas, sparking criticism from the opposition Liberty Korea party saying that too many corporate giants would benefit.

The South Korean government plans to invest more than $3.4 billion dollars in R&D over the next 5 years and has designated biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors as the country’s new economic driver. 

South Korea enjoys strong showings in four of the five measures. It is second in patents (8479 listing at least one South Korean inventor, according to WIPO) and IPOs (10 companies, of which eight have raised or disclosed plans to raise a combined $239.5 million). The nation also places third in R&D ($79.354 billion in 2016, according to OECD) and in jobs (760,000 as of 2015, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare), but finishes sixth in number of companies (737 drug manufacturers as of 2016, according to data released this year by the Korea Pharmaceutical and Bio-Pharma Manufacturers Association).