Prosecutors Refile Arrest Warrant for Lee Woo-seok, Kolon Life Science CEO, Over 'Invossa Suspicion'

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] The prosecution has refiled an arrest warrant for Kolon Life Science CEO Lee Woo-seok.

The Criminal Division 2 of the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office (Chief Prosecutor Kang Ji-sung) filed an arrest warrant against CEO Lee on the 28th on charges of violating the Pharmaceutical Affairs Act, the Capital Markets Act, and the Subsidy Management Act.

CEO Lee is accused of knowing that Invossa contained kidney-derived cells, which could cause tumors, instead of cartilage cells, and hiding this fact while submitting approval documents to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS). Based on this, he is also charged with receiving 8.2 billion won in subsidies after being selected for the government's global advanced biopharmaceutical technology development project in October 2015.

He is also accused of manipulating the books by prematurely reflecting part of the technology export contract payment in the accounting to align the value of the U.S. subsidiary Kolon TissueGene, which led the development of Invossa, with listing standards, and listing the company on KOSDAQ.

The prosecution filed an arrest warrant for CEO Lee on the 24th of last month, but it was dismissed by the court. At that time, the court explained that the reasons for dismissal included ▲ the suspect's position and duties within the company ▲ whether there were specific instructions or involvement ▲ the degree of evidence regarding awareness of illegal activities ▲ progress of investigations into other key related persons ▲ and the status of legal disputes between the suspect's company and overseas firms.

After the warrant dismissal, the prosecution conducted supplementary investigations and detected circumstances indicating CEO Lee's involvement in Kolon Life Science fabricating documents to receive 8.2 billion won in subsidies. They added charges of violating the Subsidy Management Act and refiled the warrant this time.

Earlier, the prosecution arrested and indicted Kolon Life Science's clinical development director Cho (46), head of management support Yang (51), and Kolon TissueGene's Chief Financial Officer Kwon (50) in succession.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.