Lee Dong-hoon, CEO of SK Biopharm, "We will achieve our goal 'lightly and quickly' and leap forward"

Lee Dong-hoon, President of SK Biopharm, presented a vision at the New Year's gathering, stating, "Challenging tasks amid difficult external environments such as global growth slowdown are rather good opportunities to demonstrate competitiveness and differentiation," and added, "We will work together to make this year a leap forward by achieving our goals 'lightly and quickly.'"

Donghoon Lee, CEO of SK Biopharm [Photo by SK Biopharm]

On the 2nd, SK Biopharm held a New Year's event at a movie theater with about 200 employees. Following last year’s event, which was the first New Year's gathering since President Lee Dong-hoon took office at the end of 2022, this marked the second consecutive year of a unique New Year's event combined with a movie screening.

At the event, President Lee praised the efforts and achievements of the employees, saying, “Thanks to everyone’s relentless efforts in 2023, we achieved many accomplishments in various areas, including the successful acquisition of SK Life Science Labs, accelerated growth of Cenobamate and strengthening of global partnerships, the announcement of a new financial story, and ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) management.”

He continued, “As CEO, I had valuable opportunities to better understand each other through interviews with all members,” and reflected, “Through on-site communication with the U.S. sales lab, domestic and international clinical teams, and investors, I personally felt the innovation and vision of Cenobamate, which gave me strong confidence and responsibility for its growth as the ‘first domestic blockbuster.’” He added, “SK Biopharm is the first and only Korean company to sell new drugs in the U.S. and global markets. We have just started running, and I hope everyone can take pride in the new history we are writing together.”

President Lee identified ‘light and fast’ as the keyword for 2024. The goals include ▲sustaining high growth and establishing a sustainable profitable structure through efficient operation of Cenobamate ▲securing competitive new products and pipelines ▲and concretizing new modality businesses such as cell and gene therapy (CGT), radiopharmaceutical therapy (RPT), and targeted protein degradation (TPD), which are promoted as the so-called ‘three major platforms.’ These objectives will be achieved quickly while enhancing efficiency and flexibility. To this end, SK Biopharm recently reorganized its structure to introduce an agile project-based organization to improve efficiency in research and development (R&D) and strengthen flexibility and collaboration.

Finally, President Lee stated, “Challenging tasks amid difficult external environments such as global growth slowdown are rather good opportunities to demonstrate SK Biopharm’s competitiveness and differentiation,” and added, “This year, we will work together to make it a year of leap by achieving our goals lightly and quickly, and in the process, each employee will also grow significantly.”

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