This is the best goal that anyone with ambitions dreams of. However, there are many reasons for achieving this dream, but it is not easy. This is especially true for owners who own the company. In reality, most of the owners maintain the title of’Chairman’ until the last breath in this life. So, when the head of a company suddenly dies, the legal battle between the remaining families over management rights has become a familiar landscape.
In this culture of succession of management rights in the business world, entrepreneurs who realize this dream and withdraw from it are a hot topic. This is about Seo Jeong-jin, chairman of Celltrion.
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As has been revealed several times, Chairman Seo will return to savage after giving up all of his positions as Chairman of Celltrion and Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Celltrion Shareholders’ Meeting held in March. It has been 19 years since Celltrion was founded in 2002. Born in 1956, Chairman Seo is 65 years old this year, and he is truly the age of’in the midst’. Chairman Seo has pledged to the usual executives and employees, “Like the executives of Celltrion, I will boldly retire when the retirement age comes without exception.”
Since Celltrion executives’ retirement age is 65, Chairman Seo has kept the promise he made to employees. Celltrion Vice Chairman Ki Woo-sung, who succeeded Chairman Seo’s baton, will likely inherit the position of Celltrion Chairman, and Celltrion Senior Vice President Seo Jin-seok, the eldest son of Chairman Seo, will inherit the position of Celltrion’s board of directors.
Chairman Seo threw a vote for an industry called’biosimilar’, which was left as a wasteland in Korea because no one was willing to do so 20 years ago. Biosimilar refers to a drug that is a clone of a biological drug whose patent has expired.
Biosimilars came as fate to Chairman Seo, who majored in industrial engineering at university and worked at Daewoo Motors. In 2001, he met world-renowned scholars in the field of vaccines in San Francisco, USA, and learned about the bio-industry, seeing that the biosimilar business is promising. Upon returning to Korea, he purchased a large-scale biosimilar factory site in Songdo, Incheon, and started the business in earnest.
Celltrion, which has been founded 19 years this year, is now gaining a position as a global pharmaceutical company, surpassing the leading players in the domestic pharmaceutical and bio industry. Until the third quarter of last year, it recorded sales of 1.35 trillion won and operating profit of 5473 billion won, respectively.
Although the results for the fourth quarter of last year have not been confirmed, sales are expected to reach 1.86 trillion won and operating profit of 760 billion won. The industry’s evaluation is that Celltrion’s performance is meaningful in that it is the highest sales and operating profit ever in the domestic pharmaceutical and bio industry, which has a history of over 100 years.
In terms of corporate value, Celltrion’s position in the business world is even more pronounced. The combined market capitalization of and, exceeds KRW 80 trillion. It is ranked 3rd in the ranking after,.
Chairman Seo, who puts Celltrion on the rock and leaves the company at the height of his age, is throwing a significant wave into our society.
Above all, it is evaluated that his’frontier’ spirit, who boldly challenged the new biosimilar business that others did not see at the time, should never be overlooked. In particular, it is pointed out that his challenging entrepreneurial spirit is more desperate than ever for the Korean economy, which has been stagnant because he has not been able to discover future growth engines. To Chairman Seo, who is preparing for the biosimilar business, a number of global pharmaceutical companies and bio experts at the time said, “Antibody biosimilar is not a business that anyone can enter.” However, he said, “The imminent expiration of patents for major biopharmaceuticals will be a great opportunity.”
After the pandemic of Corona 19, his entrepreneurial determination to develop a treatment by consolidating the company’s capabilities is also highly evaluated. In February last year, Chairman Seo started developing a treatment for Corona 19, and virtually all 400 of Celltrion’s key researchers were put into the project. Of course, some of the existing drug development projects were in parallel, but it was not easy.
As a result, Celltrion surprised the surroundings by making a request to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety on the 29th of last month, 10 months after starting to develop an emergency use approval for the COVID-19 antibody treatment. Celltrion is expected to receive approval for use from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety as early as this month. It will establish itself as the first COVID-19 treatment developed by a Korean company. Globally, it will set a record as the third approval for COVID-19 antibody treatment.
Above all, the industry predicts that if the Corona 19 treatment developed by Celltrion devotedly has a great effect in eradicating the corona, Chairman Seo will be imprinted in the minds of the people as a representative entrepreneur who fulfills social responsibilities.
A business official said, “I can feel the true entrepreneurial spirit in the way I keep my promise to grow a new industry called biosimilar ahead of others and retire.” In particular, at the age of 65, I entrusted Celltrion to a junior executive and challenged a blood test startup. When you see Chairman Seo, who says he will do it, it seems like a resignation showing what kind of life the business people should live.”