During the swine flu pandemic, South Korea had a challenging time due to the Tamiflu shortage. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the government spent national finances to import vaccines from the U.S., Europe, and even Russia due to the absence of local mRNA vaccines.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, countries worldwide focused on locally distributing medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients (API), and strengthened the trade hurdle, maintaining a closed economy. Therefore, South Korea acknowledged the importance of the pharmaceutical and biotech industry as a national security industry.

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the end of the COVID-19 pandemic in May of last y