South Korea’s ranking in biotech competitiveness, announced by the U.S. science journal Scientific American, went down by two notches this year from 2016, the Biotech Policy Research Center said Wednesday.

The nation’s biotech industry produces many excellent papers, but they are not well connected with businesses, the journal noted.

Scientific American evaluated 54 nations’ competitiveness in the biotech sector in seven categories – productivity, intellectual property (IP) protection, intensity, enterprise support, education/workforce, foundations, and policy & stability.

Korea ranked 26th this year, down from 24th in 2016.
The nation scored 21.8 in total, with scores rising in productivity, intensity, enterprise support, education/workforce and falling in foundations, policy and stability.

Korea received a high score in biotech investment. The journal said both the Korean government and the private sector have a strong commitment to investing in biotechnologies in biopharmaceuticals, biofuel development, and infrastructure support.

However, Korea’s high publishing ranking of ninth does not coincide with a strong biotech industry, the journal noted. Telemedicine was cited as one of the technologies relatively underused due to regulation.

The journal rated Korea’s biotech infrastructure at the highest level, along with that of Switzerland.

In productivity of biotechnology, the U.S. ranked No. 1 with an overwhelmingly high score. Finland topped IP protection, followed by the U.S.

Lithuania ranked first in biotech intensity. The U.S. and Singapore were No. 1 and No. 2 in enterprise support. Singapore marked the highest score in education/workforce and policy and stability.