On Thursday July 9, KISCO formally announced a new research and production partnership. The announcement took place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Seoul.
The new partnership involves an investment from KISCO and CSIRO (the Australian Government Research agency) into Boron Molecular, an Australian-based chemical company.
At the event, KISCO President Sung Yong Cho said: “I am very pleased to be formally announcing a new research and production partnership between KISCO, CSIRO and Boron Molecular. We are very excited by this partnership. It is a great opportunity to help take new chemical products and technologies to the global market. The KISCO and Boron Molecular teams now have a strong pipeline of products that KISCO is looking to assist with manufacturing.”
Boron Molecular CEO Zoran Manev said: “Today’s celebration comes about from the vision and the hard work by so many different individuals. We have two supportive companies in CSIRO and KISCO investing into Boron and their trust in us to grow the business. We have a range of technologies that will take us forward in the future.”
CSIRO Director of Manufacturing, Keith McLean said: “Boron Molecular, originally a CSIRO spin out more than 20 years ago, has been for many years a key partner of CSIRO. They have helped us scale-up production processes and scaling up chemistry that underpins the creation of products across a whole range of industry sectors. With this new deal that we are celebrating today, CSIRO really looks forward to further cementing our relationship with Boron and growing new partnerships and opportunities with KISCO.”
CSIRO Director of Growth, Nigel Warren said: “We prioritise working with international partners, like KISCO, that have the vision to invest in Australian technology and partner with Australian business to build what we see as a really mutually beneficial partnership benefitting both Australia and Korea.”
KOTRA Trade Commissioner (Melbourne), Yong-seop Byeon said: “Congratulations on the significant R&D partnership among KISCO, Boron Molecular and CSIRO. Even in the COVID-19 situation, Korean investment in Australia is still expanding and diversifying into various industry sectors. As you know, traditionally it was centred around resources industries like coal and iron ore. But now many investments are occurring in the high tech sectors like chemicals, cosmetics and biotech medical services.”
Australian Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, James Choi said: “I’ve been highlighting in my public speeches Australia’s rich history in research and development and I’ve highlighted CSIRO’s critical role in that respect. But the other aspect that I mention is Korea’s strong industrial base, it’s ability to market and commercialise great research into concrete products that are sent to the rest of the world. And frankly this partnership between Boron Molecular, CSIRO and KISCO represents this model, this strong complementarity between our two countries. What this will do will be to highlight CSIRO’s rich history but also the ideas, research and development from Boron Molecular piped through to KISCO and sent through to the rest of the world. I wish this partnership to be fruitful and prosperous and constructive in years ahead. But I’m also hopeful that this is just the start of a long-standing, rich history of science and technology and research and development partnerships between our two countries.”
