"Creating a Korean-Style 'Healthcare CES'... 'MEeT 2026' to Be Held in September"

Ilsong Academy to Host Event at COEX The Platz on September 10
Keynote Speech by Kevin Grimes, Co-Director of Stanford SPARK

"Every January, there are articles asking, 'Why is it that Samsung Electronics and Hyundai Motor always make appearances at CES, but CES itself is only held in Las Vegas, USA?' While CES is not an event that could be held in Korea due to the structure of our industries, I believe healthcare could be different."

On the 13th, officials from Ilsong Academy were speaking at the 'MEeT 2026' pre-media day held at Doheon Hall, Ilsong Academy Foundation, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul. Photo by Jungyeon Park

At the 'MEeT 2026' pre-media day held at Doheon Hall, Ilsong Academy Foundation, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul on August 13, Eunjoo Yoon, President of the Korea Convention & Exhibition Industry Research Institute and Professor of MICE Planning and Management at Hallym University, expressed her ambitions for the event in this way. She emphasized that the level of Korean medical care is already among the world’s best, with many countries seeking to learn from Korea, so it is possible to create an international business event in the healthcare sector on par with CES.

The MEeT 2026 Medical Technology Commercialization Conference will be held for the first time at The Platz in COEX, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, on September 10. It is hosted by Ilsong Academy Foundation, the Korea Convention & Exhibition Industry Research Institute, and IzPMP Co., Ltd., and sponsored by Korea Investment Partners and the Korea Biotechnology Industry Organization (KoreaBIO).

Yukyungho, Dean of Hallym University College of Medicine, introduced the event by addressing the obstacles that prevent outstanding clinical ideas from turning into commercialized products, explaining the background of the event. He stated, "Eight out of ten medical AI projects in Korea stall at the pilot stage, largely because many do not adequately reflect clinical demand." He continued, "The failure rate of technology development projects that falter due to a lack of understanding of clinical needs exceeds 70%. Even when development is successful, it takes an average of 4.2 months to receive regulatory approval and another six months on average to find a hospital partner for joint validation."

According to statistics, 81.4% of the 263 doctor-founded startups in Korea were established after 2016, which means there has been little time to accumulate first-hand experience. Furthermore, these opportunities are concentrated in large or research-oriented hospitals equipped with technology commercialization teams and industry-university cooperation units, making it difficult for medical staff at small and medium-sized hospitals to even get started, even if they have similar ideas.

There are also concerns that although government support is increasing rapidly, there is not yet an established pathway to actually connect these outcomes to the market. This year, the budget for physician-scientist training has surpassed 120 billion won, and the Ministry of Health and Welfare's R&D budget has also increased by 12.6% from last year, reaching 1.0652 trillion won. However, the event organizers note that there is a missing connection between the trained workforce and the markets they need to reach. Dean Yu explained, "Academic conferences focus on paper presentations, exhibitions focus on finished products, and startup events focus on attracting investment. While everyone agrees on the need for networking, there has been no event that brings all these key players together in one place."

Next month’s event will feature a keynote speech from Kevin Grimes, Professor at Stanford University School of Medicine. SPARK, an American translational research program co-directed by Professor Grimes, has advanced more than half of its projects to either corporate licensing or clinical trial stages since its launch in 2006. The recently FDA-approved ATTR amyloidosis treatment, Altruvie, was also developed through this program. Currently, more than 60 institutions in over 20 countries are adopting this model.

Following the keynote speaking session, there will be multiple roundtable discussions and one-on-one business consulting sessions. Participants can select sessions most relevant to them by topics such as developer communication, investor persuasion, global expansion, and regulatory, legal, and tax matters. Yoon added, "We will support roundtable participants so they can meet every one to two months throughout the year." The target number of attendees is 200 to 250. For this inaugural year, the event will be open free of charge to physicians.

Dean Yu also shared his personal experience, describing how the lack of sharing patient information between hospitals led him to launch his own startup. He recalled, "I was blocked from incorporating the business; as a professor-led startup, we didn't even have employees, so it was impossible to handle even minor expense processing." He continued, "Only after receiving investment did I realize how tight financial control must be. If I had known earlier, I would have approached things differently. If you start thinking about these processes after your technology is already developed, it’s too late. Reducing trial and error requires having these conversations from the very beginning."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.