SEOUL, November 18 (AJP) - Sookmyung Women’s University’s College of Pharmacy has emerged as one of South Korea’s most active incubators of medical and pharmaceutical R&D, expanding its global footprint and highlighting the strength of female scientific leadership in the country.
In an interview with AJP, Dean Jeon Ra-ok said the college’s competitiveness "comes from its history, and the networks and research foundation that history has built."
A central marker of that strength is the college’s back-to-back selection for the Medical Research Center (MRC) program — one of Korea’s most competitive national grants in medical and pharmaceutical science. Only a handful of pharmacy schools nationwide qualify. Sookmyung’s project, built around its Muscle and Sebum Research Center, receives roughly 1.5 billion won (about $1.1 million) per year.
"MRC selection is one of the highest research recognitions a pharmacy school can receive," Jeon said. "Being chosen twice in a row reflects not the achievement of one professor but the collective capacity of our entire research team." The long-running program, she added, connects undergraduate internships with graduate-level research and requires "many years of accumulated infrastructure and collaboration."
This year, the college also secured a spot in the newly expanded Glocal Lab program, another major government initiative that provides funding on a similar scale. The program mandates global partnerships, and Jeon said the college already collaborates with Princeton University, the University of Massachusetts, Ghent University in Belgium, and the Pasteur Institute in France.
"This is not symbolic," she said. "We co-design research and verify results together. Our selection shows that the school has both regional influence and global expansion potential."
Alumni have become another pillar of Sookmyung’s rise. Since its founding in 1953, just after the Korean War, the college has produced graduates who now hold mid- to senior-level positions across healthcare and pharmaceuticals. "If you gathered only our graduates, you could form an entire market ecosystem," Jeon said.
Among its most distinguished alumnae is Chung Hee-sun, a forensic scientist who served as the inaugural president of the National Forensic Service. Renowned for her work in drug analysis, toxicology, and forensic science, Chung frequently returns to campus for special lectures. Jeon noted that the number of pharmacy-trained professionals in the forensic field has declined, and that Chung "actively encourages more pharmacy graduates to enter."
In the pharmacy profession, Kwon Young-hee, president of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association and the first woman to head the century-old organization, is also a Sookmyung graduate. She has pushed to redefine pharmacists as public health professionals and is advocating for generic-name prescriptions, which allow patients to choose among products containing the same active ingredients.
The pharmaceutical distribution sector is shaped by another alumna, Cho Sun-hae, co-founder and chairwoman of Geo-Young, Korea’s largest drug distributor with annual sales of around 4 trillion won. She has long supported student and alumni initiatives. In biotechnology, Professor Baek Kyu-hoon founded Animusquare, a muscle-research-based startup now in discussions with Merck over a Phase II clinical-stage technology.
Jeon summarized the college’s strengths as "history, research, and network." Founded in a time of national hardship, the school was one of Korea’s earliest pharmacy programs. "Our long history gives the institution stability and credibility," she said. "When you have stability, you have the confidence to take on new challenges."
Reflecting that philosophy, the college recently overhauled its curriculum to include biopharmaceuticals, data science, and bioinformatics — fields expected to define the next era of health care. Faculty expansion has further reinforced the academic structure.
"Pharmacy is a professional discipline, but it is also an area where innovation is essential," Jeon said. "I hope our students grow into innovators who can take bold steps forward on a strong foundation."
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