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BIONEER, Korea’s first bio venture, was established in 1992, when even the concept of venture capital was unfamiliar, as a company selling gene research equipment and reagents in Korea. It has survived for more than 30 years. The company has not merely maintained its existence but has continued to invest about 40 percent of its annual revenue in research and development while keeping a healthy cash flow. Today, it has grown into a company that records approximately 200 billion KRW in consolidated sales and remains profitable. The reason BIONEER has been able to survive and grow in the bio industry, which is characterized by high costs and high risks, lies in its portfolio strategy achieved through business diversification. Without straying from its core business, the company has 1) identified markets with significant unmet needs, 2) secured patent-based technological advantages through innovative ideas, and 3) steadily expanded new businesses through spin-offs to scale up. This diversification strategy by BIONEER shows that achieving a long-term vision requires developing short-term cash cows and maintaining balance through an ambidextrous approach.

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Since 2022, Korea’s bio industry has been in continuous decline. As an investment freeze set in, first-generation bio venture founders who could no longer bear accumulated deficits and cash shortages began relinquishing their positions as major shareholders and selling management control. With funding sources drying up and equity diluted by successive rights issues, ownership has largely changed hands at small and midsize ventures founded in the 1990s and 2000s, including “PharmAbcine,” “Helixmith,” “CrystalGenomics,” “MediPost,” “LabGenomics,” and “Humasis.” The next generation in the industry does not view these first-generation K-bio companies entirely favorably. Their contributions were significant as early movers who nurtured the soil of Korea’s bio industry with lofty ambitions for new drug development, yet the scars they left are just as deep. Despite high clinical costs and ongoing R&D spending, the difficulty of recouping investments reinforced the image of a money pit, and some once-noted companies, including “SillaJen,” provided grounds for the capital market to lose confidence in the bio sector because of executives’ ethical lapses and illegal acts.

In this context, the survival of “BIONEER,” Korea’s first bio venture and the first company to go public under a technology-special listing on KOSDAQ, carries strong symbolic meaning. Founded in 1992 by Chairman Park Han-oh to localize gene technology, the company returned to profit in 2020, satisfied financial requirements, entered KOSDAQ’s premier segment in 2022, and rekindled hope that persevering can yield the fruits of long-term R&D. BIONEER’s 2022 results on a consolidated basis were revenue of 218.4 billion KRW and operating profit of 11.5 billion KRW. Profitability deteriorated compared with 2021, when it posted 207.0 billion KRW in revenue and 105.1 billion KRW in operating profit on the back of exports of COVID-19 diagnostic devices and kits, but it still demonstrated resilience by defending revenue after the pandemic-driven boom ended. This stands in contrast to molecular diagnostics equipment and kit makers that enjoyed a boom over the same period but swung to losses and initiated large-scale restructuring after COVID-19 subsided. The reason BIONEER could deliver strong results was that revenue was driven by sales of “BNR Thin,” a fat-reduction probiotic product from its subsidiary “AceBiome,” which served as a cash cow. In addition, “CosmeRNA,” an RNA-based cosmetic for alleviating hair loss that recently began sales in Europe, is drawing attention as a next-generation revenue source expected to bolster the company.

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