Germany-based pharmaceutical company Merck said it would join hands with South Korea to overcome the sluggish growth of the local and global display industry at a recent academic convention held in Gyeongju on Aug. 29.
Merck Managing Director Glenn Young said during its 30 years in South Korea, Merck has chosen to grow together with the local electronics industry. He said that Merck will continue to work together with local companies and industries in new fields, such as health care and life science.
Young made the remarks at the Merck Science Connect, an event the firm held on the sidelines of the International Meeting on Information Display 2019.
It was the first time since 2004 that Merck has held an independent event at the convention. In the past, it has been issuing the Merck Award and the Merck Young Scientist Award at IMID.
Under the slogan Accelerating Display, the Merck CEO stressed that just like it had helped lead the country’s display industry with LCD panels, it will continue to do so in the OLED era and work to develop next generation products.
Merck invested 15 billion won (11 million euros) in 2008 to open a high-tech facility in May of 2010 for supplying high-quality display materials. The following October, it opened the OLED application synthesis institute and the OLED application center (OAC) in May of 2015.
Meanwhile, this year’s Merck Award went to Prof. Kwon Jang-hyuk of Kyunghee University, while the Young Scientist Award was given to Prof. Lee Jong-hwi of Hanbat University.
Prof. Kwon contributed to localizing the production LCD color filters and the mass production of OLED displays for the first time in the world in 2007. Prof. Lee, on the other hand, has worked extensively with soluble OLED technology-based chemical materials, parts, panels and optical simulation.
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