Catholic University of Korea’s Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital announced on Tuesday that it has been selected for the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s research-centered hospital advancement program. This national strategic initiative aims to support domestic research-focused hospitals in establishing a performance-driven research system that bridges basic translational research with clinical applications and technology commercialization.
The hospital plans to accelerate the development of full-cycle medical technologies by integrating a specialized open research and development (R&D) platform with an artificial intelligence (AI) based research management system, under the leadership of Dr. Hong Sung-ho, the research director and head of the Robotic Surgery Center.
Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital has built a solid research infrastructure. In 2022, it launched the Omnibus Park, a 11,570 square meter facility that houses an industry-academia-research convergence cluster. The hospital has also secured a digital clinical verification foundation by standardizing medical data from eight hospitals. As the first university hospital in Korea to set up a cell production facility, it can now conduct full-cycle research and development.
Dr. Hong stated that through this project, it aims to expedite the clinical translation of research outcomes and technology commercialization, contributing to public health improvement and solidifying Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital’s position as a world-class research-centered institution.
Previously, Dr. Lee Ji-yeol, president of Seoul St. Mary’s Hospital, expressed his commitment to support clinical entry and research innovation through the specialized open R&D advancement platform and AI-based research support platform. He aims to transform the hospital into a global research powerhouse by accelerating drug development and addressing critical public health challenges. Moreover, the hospital is implementing its research-centered hospital certification by establishing governance for health and medical research commercialization, building a sustainable R&D commercialization system, enhancing the commercialization framework based on open platforms, and creating social value through cutting-edge global research.
The hospital is focusing on key areas such as blood and immune disorders, digital clinical research, advanced convergence biomedicine, and precision regenerative medicine. It is also identifying and nurturing specific research fields including blood and immune diseases, intractable autoimmune disorders, genomic studies, and big data and AI-based analysis.