A CEO Born in the 90s Is Coming to K-Bio... "A Regulatory Innovation Channel Is Needed"

CEOs born in the 1990s are emerging in domestic bio companies. They unanimously agreed that regulatory innovation is necessary for bio-technology innovation.

On the morning of the 14th, presenters are discussing during the keynote session on the last day of 'BioPlus-InterPhex Korea (BIX 2023)' held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. The session was conducted under the theme "REVAMPING THE INDUSTRY II - CEOs Born in the 90s Leading the Future." From the left: Yonggeon Kim, Vice President of Acceleration Division 2 at Bluepoint Partners; Heejae Lee, CEO of Seaweed; Dongheon Lee, CEO of A-Sleep; Suhyun Lee, CEO of Tesser.
Photo by Myunghwan Lee

Bio startup CEOs such as Lee Hee-jae, CEO of Seaweed, Lee Dong-heon, CEO of A-Sleep, and Lee Soo-hyun, CEO of Tesser, took the stage as speakers at the keynote session on the last day of 'BioPlus-Interphex Korea (BIX 2023)' held at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul on the morning of the 14th, sharing their business models and future directions. All of them were born in the 1990s and founded bio companies at a relatively young age. Since starting a business in the bio field is considered to have high initial barriers such as technological capability and fundraising ability, the emergence of young CEOs is relatively rare compared to other industries.

Seaweed is a bio startup that produces cultured meat using seaweed, founded by CEO Lee Hee-jae and five colleagues during their graduate school days. A-Sleep is a sleep tech company that develops services to measure users' sleep states and supplies solutions to large corporations including LG Electronics. CEO Lee Dong-heon also founded the company during his master's program. Medical AI company Tesser provides services that make patients' diagnosis reports, medical data, and medical images easier to understand. CEO Lee Soo-hyun, who graduated from a Korean medicine university, encountered web programming while in college and participated in medical and healthcare development projects before co-founding Tesser in 2019.

During the discussion following their presentations, they shared the reasons and stories behind their decisions to start their businesses. CEO Lee Soo-hyun said, "Some people ask why I started a business when I could have lived a stable life as a Korean medicine student," adding, "I had a personal question about why I should live. After much contemplation, the answer I came to was to create change through meaningful work, which led me to decide to start Tesser."

They also revealed that attracting investment was not easy during the startup process. CEO Lee Dong-heon said, "I thought of finding partners who could stay with us until we could achieve initial results," and added, "We constantly think about moving forward with trust alongside investors who believed in us and invested from outside."

The discussion participants agreed on the need for an integrated window for regulatory innovation. CEO Lee Hee-jae said, "Bio is a regulatory mass with laws piled on top of laws," and confessed, "Since there are more than ten regulations to solve, we ultimately headed to the U.S. for survival." He also mentioned, "It would be great to have an integrated organization like an innovation center that can solve regulations."

Kim Yong-geon, Vice President of Acceleration Division 2 at Bluepoint Partners, who chaired the discussion that day, pointed out, "Recently, when technologies at the boundaries come together, convergence leaders often create innovation," and said, "It is difficult for startup CEOs to visit each government ministry one by one to persuade and solve problems." Vice President Kim further suggested, "There needs to be a control tower window that allows startup CEOs to solve problems at once."

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