South Korea’s biomedicine exports have surpassed one billion U.S. dollars for the first time.

According to the Korea Customs Service on Wednesday, outbound shipments of biomedicines, such as vaccines and genetic recombination drugs, topped one-point-four billion dollars in 2016, up more than 50 percent from a year earlier.

The sharp increase is mainly attributed to strong exports by vaccine manufacturers such as Green Cross and growing demand of locally produced biosimilar drugs in the European market.