Just One New Medicine Developed after Spending 154.4 Billion Won for 10 Years

It has been revealed that in most national research and development (R & D) projects that cost several trillion won of government revenue annually, huge amount of tax money is being wasted due to improper progression ranging from the selection of research subjects to the aftermath management and evaluation.

This has been disclosed after the Board of Audit and Inspection of Korea (BAIK) sent an audit result on the state of the national R& D projects to Shin Young-Kook (The Grand National Party), a member of the National Assembly who belongs to the Industry and Energy Committee. The BAIK audited the state of the national R&D projects carried out by 7 ministries including the Ministry of Science and Technology (MST), the Ministry of Industry and Energy (MIE), and the Ministry of Information and Communication (MIC), among 19 ministries executing the R&D projects from September fourth last year for forty days.

According to the result, although a research project has been stopped because the company participating the project had abandoned, those ministries evaluated the project as a successful. And the lax aftermath management has also been pointed out. For example, although a research participating company sold products utilizing the research result, the technology license fee was not charged. What follows indicate the state and problems in different categories.

· Selection of the research project subjects: Failing to understand the rapidly changing streams in the world technology market, three ministries, including the MST which arbitrarily had selected research subjects, discontinued 31 research projects without producing any result wasting 11.628 billion government subsidy.

The MIE squandered 3.360 billion won after selecting 5 non-profitable subjects for which the research institution did not yet secure proper technology for the subjects. After opting for 34 projects including the `on-spot bottleneck technology development project` as independent research projects for universities or institutes rather than the industry-academia cooperation research projects, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry (MAF) hoarded a total 5.579 billion won of research fund.

· Research Project Execution: The MST wasted 20.4 billion won government subsidy with an excuse in which a chief researcher gave up in the middle of the research process or a research participating company abandoned the project.

Although there is high risk and huge revenue consumption in developing new medicine, the Ministry of Health and Welfare (MHW) did not harvest any result after pouring about 30 billion won by selecting a single enterprise as the researcher company rather than forming joint research teams consisted of domestic pharmacy companies that are inferior to foreign companies.

The Ministry of Environment even evaluated two failed research projects, including the `popular edition plating waste fluid disposal system development project by utilizing a clean process design`, as `successful projects`, although the project has been stopped after the participating company dropped out from the project.

As the MHW subsidized 30 billion won for 120 research projects to develop new medicines from 1995, the ministry assigned 119 projects to a single company except for one project. Due to this kind of subsidy distribution system, only one new medicine, SK Chemicals` anticancer medicine `Sunpla`, has been developed after spending the total subsidy of 154.4 billion won given from 1991 to last year.

· Result Evaluation and Aftermath Management: The MST wasted 5.58 billion won since the ministry did not take a proper aftermath measure for utilizing research products even after a project finished.

Even though the MHW provided 1.25 won for SK Chemicals` `the third generation platinum extraction anticancer medicine development project` that made a sale of 1.95 billion won up to August, 2000, the ministry did not charge its royalty of 0.8 billion won.

Including the MHW, four ministries have not collected technology license fee of total 5.26 billion won yet. Four ministries including the MST converted about 12 billion won including the remainder from the R&D subsidy and the retrieved revenue without returning the money to the national treasury. And they even did not pay the interest from the unused revenue of 84 billion won (the end of 1999).

Sun Dae-In eodls@donga.com