(Photo=Lotte) Lotte Group, one of South Korea’s largest conglomerates, is signaling a strategic pivot away from sales-driven expansion as it confronts slowing growth and mounting pressure to improve capital efficiency across its businesses. At a semiannual meeting of senior executives this week, Chairman Shin Dong-bin told top management that the company’s challenges cannot be resolved without abandoning long-standing management habits

(Photo=Dong-A ST) As the U.S. obesity drug market grows more crowded and capital-intensive, smaller biotech companies are increasingly relying on creative financing to stay in contention. MetaVia, a U.S.-based biotechnology company backed by South Korean pharmaceutical group Dong-A ST, is the latest to take that route. MetaVia said it raised about $8.1 million in gross proceeds through a registered public

(Photo=LivsMed) Rising costs and tighter capital budgets are forcing hospital systems to reexamine how they invest in surgical robotics, a category long shaped by a single dominant platform. That reassessment is beginning to draw overseas manufacturers that see room for alternatives, including LivsMed, a South Korean medical-device maker that is moving to establish a foothold after securing fresh capital from

Photo=Motionelements A two-day strike by Seoul’s city bus drivers ended late Wednesday after labor and management reached a last-minute deal, restoring full service early Thursday and easing disruptions that had left millions of commuters scrambling amid freezing winter conditions. The Seoul City Bus Labor Union and the Seoul Bus Transport Business Association finalized a tentative wage agreement shortly before midnight

Photo=Dongwon Group Kim Jae-chul, honorary chairman of Dongwon Group, one of South Korea’s largest food and logistics conglomerates, has pledged additional funding to the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, reinforcing private-sector support for artificial-intelligence education as the country looks to narrow its gap with global AI leaders. KAIST said Thursday that Mr. Kim will donate an additional about