Aprogen Chairman Kim Jaeseop Returns as Co-CEO... "Will Deliver Business Results Within the Year"

Kim Jae-seop, Chairman of Aprogen, is returning to management as co-CEO.

On the 28th, Aprogen held a board meeting and passed a resolution to appoint Chairman Kim Jae-seop as co-CEO alongside CEO Lee Seung-ho.

Chairman Kim Jae-seop stepped down not only as CEO but also as a registered director on Aprogen's board on August 11, 2021. This occurred when Lee Seung-ho, who gained fame by successfully completing major M&As at Morgan Stanley and Nomura Securities and served as the head of Nomura Securities IB division in Korea, was brought in as CEO.

CEO Lee Seung-ho has maintained a connection with Chairman Kim Jae-seop since their time at Morgan Stanley in 2015. Since then, Aprogen's management has been entirely led by CEO Lee Seung-ho, while Chairman Kim focused solely on developing new drug and biosimilar pipelines centered around the Fair Analysis Research Institute and the New Drug Development Research Institute.

However, from the end of 2021, due to the outbreak of COVID-19, the Ukraine war, and successive interest rate hikes, the overall domestic and international economy deteriorated, causing a sharp decline in investment in the domestic bio sector and a steep drop in bio companies' stock prices. Aprogen was not immune to this situation. At the time when the merger securities registration statement between Aprogen Medicine, the predecessor of current Aprogen, and the unlisted Aprogen took effect, the market capitalization exceeded 1.5 trillion KRW, but it plummeted to around 300 billion KRW in just over a year.

Since last fall, Chairman Kim Jae-seop intermittently expressed his opinions to the board through CEO Lee Seung-ho, and after being appointed as a registered director at the extraordinary general meeting in November last year, he has been more actively voicing his views on overall management. During this process, the need for role-sharing and responsible management between CEO Lee Seung-ho and Chairman Kim Jae-seop was raised.

Recently, due to frequent consultations and negotiations with overseas pharmaceutical companies, the company explained that the urgent need arose for responsible management to respond deeply, scientifically, and professionally to the company’s pipeline and overall proprietary technologies, leading to the sudden decision for Chairman Kim Jae-seop to return as CEO.

A company official stated, “With Chairman Kim Jae-seop’s return, we are determined to regain our status as Korea’s first bio unicorn company and achieve management results within this year. We ask for attention to our future steps, as we will not only accelerate clinical progress of biosimilars and new drugs but also achieve results in building cooperative relationships with overseas pharmaceutical companies.”

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