Ex-AstraZeneca personnel snatch up top executive positions

Top Korean pharmaceutical companies favor former AZ employees

SD Namgoong Hyun to aim for first CEO of GC Pharma

Pak Sang-jin at Samsung Bioepis promoted as EVP

Former employees of AstraZeneca are favored as top executives in Korean pharmaceutical companies.

 

The positions vary from CEO to vice-president.

 

Korea pharmaceutical companies are aiming to expand overseas business by recruiting former AstraZeneca employees with global experience.

 

AstraZeneca is a British multinational company.

 

Senior Director Namgoong Hyun at GC Pharma

At a stockholder’ meeting scheduled on Mar.

 

25, GC Pharma would discuss of appointing Senior Director Namgoong Hyun (52) as a CEO.

 

The term would last for two years.

 

Senior Director Namgoong has served as a Sales Director and a Marketing Executive for the Asian market at AstraZeneca.

 

GC Pharma newly opened Marketing Department in January, 2018, and recruited her.

 

If the stockholders grant her the position, she would be the first CEO since 1998, when GC Pharma first started filing business reports.

 

Executive VP Pak Sang-jin at Samsung Bioepis

Seven years since the establishment, Samsung Bioepis is adopting dual-vice-president system.

 

With the latest personnel changes, head of Commercial Division Pak Sang-jin (50) was promoted as an executive vice-president (VP).

 

Executive VP Pak has also worked at AstraZeneca.

 

Started as a physician, he served as a general manager at GSK Germany and a president at AstraZeneca Korea, before joining Samsung Bioepis in July, 2018.

 

Before Executive VP Pak Sang-jin was appointed, Executive VP Choi Chang Hoon (60, Head of Business Development Division) was the only Executive VP.

 

Daewon Pharmaceutical has also recently recruited Lee Sora, another former AstraZeneca employee, as an executive director of Clinical R&D Division at its Seoul Research Center.

 

Starting her career as a physician, Executive Director Lee Sora used to work at Hanwha Chemical, AbbVie Korea, and AstraZeneca Korea, after serving at MSD Korea, Korean office and Denmark Headquarters of Novo Nordisk.

 

VP Son Ji-woong at LG Chem

A couple of former AstraZeneca employees have taken the top commanding position at LG Chem Bioscience Division and Dongwha Pharm.

 

In February 2017, LG Chem appointed VP Son Ji-woong (56) as a head of Bioscience Division.

 

VP Son graduated from Seoul National University College of Medicine, and worked as an internal medicine specialist doctor at Seoul National University Hospital and as a professor at Clinical Immunology Department of Hallym University College of Medicine.

 

His career continued as an Executive VP for Oncology Business Unit in Asia-Pacific Region at AstraZeneca, and a VP and CMO at Hanmi Pharmaceutical.

 

President & CEO Park Kihwan at Dongwha Pharm

President and CEO of Dongwha Pharm, Park Kihwan (57), joined the Korean company in last March after working at AstraZeneca.

 

From 2003, Park was appointed as Business Unit Director at AstraZeneca Korea.

 

Park was also appointed as General Manager of Boehringer Ingelheim Korea, Managing Director of China and South East Asia and Managing Director of Korean Office at UCB.