Daewoong Pharmaceutical Completes Application for Stay of Execution in First Trial Ruling on Nabota: "Clear Misjudgment"

[Asia Economy Reporter Myung-hwan Lee] Daewoong Pharmaceutical announced that it submitted a request for a stay of execution regarding the first-instance civil lawsuit ruling with Medytox over the alleged theft of the botulinum toxin (BTX) 'Nabota' to the Seoul Central District Court on the 15th.

Earlier, the Civil Division 61 of the Seoul Central District Court (Presiding Judge Kwon Oh-seok) ruled partially in favor of Medytox on the 10th in a lawsuit seeking to prohibit trade secret infringement worth about 50 billion KRW filed against Daewoong Pharmaceutical. The court stated that "it is difficult to deny the identity of the strains between Medytox and Daewoong Pharmaceutical." The court prohibited Daewoong Pharmaceutical from using the related manufacturing technology, ordered Daewoong Pharmaceutical to hand over the BTX strains to Medytox, and to dispose of already produced finished and semi-finished products. Additionally, Daewoong Pharmaceutical was ordered to pay a total of 40 billion KRW in damages to Medytox.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical explained the background of applying for the stay of execution, stating, "After analyzing the first-instance civil ruling, it was confirmed to be a clear misjudgment." First, it raised issues regarding the source of Medytox's strains. Daewoong Pharmaceutical pointed out, "Medytox's strains are only supported by a statement that they were secretly hidden in moving luggage when returning from the University of Wisconsin in the U.S.," and added, "There is no evidence of ownership or source, so it cannot be trusted, yet the court recognized ownership of the strains without any basis, simply citing 'customs at the time'." Daewoong Pharmaceutical argues that illegal acquisition of ownership cannot be justified by customs alone.

Furthermore, Daewoong Pharmaceutical emphasized that its strains have clear provenance supported by records of collection and identification from the riverside in Pogok-eup, Yongin City. It also added that during the prosecution investigation, no direct evidence of strain theft or epidemiological evidence to determine the source relationship was found.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical also claimed that the indirect evidence presented by the court is merely conjecture and lacks scientific validity. This is because many experts and institutions acknowledge the limitations and errors of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) analysis methods and recognize that genetic analysis results alone cannot confirm the lineage relationship between strains without epidemiological evidence.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical emphasized that there will be no issues in the manufacturing and supply of Nabota. It also added that the supply to regions where Evolus and Eon Biopharma sell, such as the U.S. and Europe, will proceed normally as all rights are guaranteed through past agreements between the two companies and Medytox.

A Daewoong Pharmaceutical official said, "After analyzing the civil ruling, we confirmed it to be an unfair judgment full of confirmation bias, so we will thoroughly investigate the truth and correct the misjudgment in the appellate trial."

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