Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) professor Jeonghwan Lee (Department of Biological Sciences, College of Natural Science) founded Hops Bioscience Co., Ltd., which has been selected for the '2025 TIPS General Track' program organized by the Ministry of SMEs and Startups.

TIPS is a representative technology startup support program that discovers and nurtures startup teams with high technological competitiveness through recommendations from private investment firms, aiming to lead the global market.

In November 2024, Hops Bioscience attracted an investment of approximately KRW 300 million from ScaleUp Partners Co., Ltd., the TIPS operator. After the operator's recommendation and a final evaluation by the Small & Medium Business Technology Information Promotion Agency, the company was selected as a beneficiary of the program. Accordingly, it will receive up to KRW 500 million in research and development (R&D) funding over the next two years.

Through this selection, Professor Lee will commence full-scale development of a new functional lettuce variety that maximizes sleep-improving efficacy by using gene-editing technology to modulate the activity of sleep-related genes.

The developed variety will target the Japanese market first, where regulations on living modified organisms (LMOs) are relatively flexible, to establish a foundation for global market entry.

In June this year, Hops Bioscience signed a technology transfer agreement and a memorandum of understanding on CRISPR-Cas9 with ToolGen Co., Ltd., which possesses core gene-editing technology, thereby securing technological entry barriers.

CEO Jeonghwan Lee stated, 'The establishment and commercialization of a foundation that can stably produce functional materials and active pharmaceutical ingredients based on plant resources will gain further momentum from this TIPS selection. We will contribute not only to building a stable domestic supply chain for functional green bio materials but also to revitalizing the regional agricultural and life sciences industry.'

He also predicted that the company's core vision project, 'Establishing a platform for the production of functional materials and active pharmaceutical ingredients through the development of medicinal hemp materials,' will be accelerated by this support.