SK Biopharmaceuticals will recruit global R&D personnel in the neuroscience and anticancer field..

Recruitment of Dr. Kim Tae-ho as a neuroscience expert
Eight MDs in clinical and medical functions
Globalization of new drugs in Asia

사진 확대 Kim Tae-ho, head of SK Biopharmaceuticals’ neuroscience division. [SK Biopharmaceuticals]

SK Biopharmaceuticals will recruit global R&D personnel in the neuroscience and anticancer fields one after another to strengthen the R&D system in the entire cycle from discovery of new drug candidates to clinical development and commercialization.

It is a strategy that reflects the demand of actual patients and medical sites in the development of new drugs by forward deploying experts from doctors (MD) around local subsidiaries in the United States.

SK Biopharmaceuticals announced on the 8th that it has recruited Dr. Kim Tae-ho, a global neuroscience R&D expert, as the head of the neuroscience (VP).

The existing central nervous system (CNS) research function will be reorganized into a “neuroscience headquarters” and operated as an organization directly under the CEO.

Dr. Kim is an expert who has conducted research and development of new drugs in the field of neuroscience for more than 20 years. He has been in charge of neuroscience R&D for 12 years at Novartis and has been in charge of discovering new drug candidates, preclinical phase, early clinical development, and portfolio strategy establishment.

In the future, SK Biopharmaceuticals will oversee neuroscience research, intermediary research, and portfolio strategies, and lead next-generation pipelines, open innovation, and domestic and international joint research.

In the field of anticancer, research capabilities are expanding, focusing on radioactive drugs (RPT) and target proteolysis (TPD).

The RPT field is led by Shin Yong-je, the head of the RPT Center, and is promoting the discovery of new drug candidates, the establishment of its own chelator platform, and securing a supply chain for radioisotopes.

At SK Life Science Labs, the U.S. corporation, Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) Ryan Krueger is in charge of researching next-generation anticancer drugs using TPD technology.

In addition to the research stage, medical professionals who will be in charge of global clinical development are also expanding.

SK Life Science, a U.S. corporation, has eight MDs in major functions such as CNS, clinical development of anticancer, drug monitoring (PV), and medical services (MA), centered on Sunita Misra, a pediatric neurologist and epilepsy specialist. Among major development and medical functional experts, MD accounts for about 20%.

In July, Kim Soo-young, a medical scientist with more than 18 years of clinical and new drug development experience in the anticancer field at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) and AbbVie, was also recruited.

These professionals have gained experience in clinical and new drug development at global pharmaceutical and bio companies, the National Cancer Institute (NCI), and the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

SK Biopharmaceuticals plans to consider the clinical value of candidates and the unmet demand of actual medical sites together through a structure in which MDs with treatment and prescription experience participate from the beginning of R&D.

CNS is conducting clinical development of systemic ankylosing-hepatic attack (PGTC), partial seizures and childhood indications expansion, and carisbamate. In the field of anticancer, MD personnel were deployed for clinical development of p300 and NTSR1 and CA9 programs.

Such global R&D capabilities are also used in the ‘East-West Bridge’ strategy promoted by SK Biopharmaceuticals.

It is a model that discovers promising new drug candidates in Asia including Korea, conducts preclinical and early clinical trials, and then connects them to the global market by utilizing SK Biopharmaceuticals’ U.S. clinical development and commercialization capabilities.

The plan is to expand the experience of commercializing the self-developed epilepsy drug XCOPRI directly in the United States to subsequent new drugs.

SK Biopharmaceuticals President Lee Dong-hoon said, “We are strengthening the R&D system that organically connects from research to clinical development and commercialization through collaboration between MD and research experts with patient treatment and prescription experience.”

“The recruitment of Dr. Kim Tae-ho and MD Kim Soo-young is also a process to strengthen global R&D expertise that connects the scientific potential of research and the unmet needs of medical sites,” he said. “We will continue to secure talented people with global experience and expertise in each field to increase competitiveness to create subsequent global new drugs.”