In order to discover rare indigenous soybean resources, and systematically restore and research them, AMOREPACIFIC (President and CEO, Suh Kyung-bae) will conduct a joint research signing ceremony with The Grace of Nature (President and CEO, Do-Yong Jeon), an oriental medicine and natural resource research institution on 11th at the Technical Laboratory located in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Beginning with this event, both parties will cultivate rare indigenous soybeans, and conduct joint research up to 2012 into how these can be used to develop products.

While domestic indigenous medicinal soybeans have proven their effectiveness and are widely-used in oriental medicine, they have been widely neglected in home cultivation.  Due to this, AMOREPACIFIC has developed an ‘AMOREPACIFIC indigenous soybean restoration test plantation’ covering around 2,900 square meters at Tanhyeon-myeon area in Paju, Gyeonggi Province, and is planning to cultivate around 10 different types of indigenous soybean.  In particular, it is the company policy to stably secure indigenous soybean raw materials with high effectiveness as well as stability utilizing an organic method of cultivation. Based on this, the company is planning to uncover a new effectiveness of domestic indigenous soybeans for the skin, and to apply its findings to products in stages.

Furthermore, at this point in time, when the need for diversity in biological resources and the securing of intellectual property rights are coming to the fore since the variety protection system was enforced in 1998, AMOREPACIFIC is also looking forward to making a contribution to resource preservation by constructing a gene database of domestic rare indigenous soybeans through this joint research. Until now, AMOREPACIFIC has been leading the way in activities to protect the diversity of biological resources, such as research on domestic oriental medicinal plant resources, invitational seminars for experts in biological diversity at home and abroad, and national biological resource preservation activities in conjunction with the National Institute of Biological Resources.  

Hak-hee Kang, CTO of AMOREPACIFIC R&D Center Centerannounced,  “We look forward to having a positive effect on securing resources and research & development with our own rare soybean resources that have excellent efficacy and to restoring their method of cultivation. Based on this, we will introduce a premium product that customers can trust.” 

In the meantime, the mid-long term research vision of AMOREPACIFIC R&D Centeris to realize sustainable R&D and develop Asian beauty products by grafting natural materials and high tech biotechnology and soybeans, ginseng and green tea. These three materials represent the traditional know-how of Amore Pacific and have now been designated as the three mid-long term major raw materials, with the company concentrating its research on these materials. In particular, AMOREPACIFIC has focused on the skin effects of soybeans since the 1980s, discovering a rare isoflavone called ‘CureBEAN™’ from fermented soybeans through 25 years of research.  A rare isoflavone, CureBEAN™ has a powerful antioxidating function, and is effective at removing toxins from the skin and normalizing the skin’s regeneration mechanism.  Because of this, in August 2010, AMOREPACIFIC released a fermentation science cosmetic product called ‘Hyosiah’ comprising the relevant ingredients.