GemVax & KAEL has appointed Song Hyoung-gon 송형곤 as their new chief executive officer, the company said Friday.
Song, a graduate of Hanyang University’s College of Medicine, joined GemVax & KAEL in 2012 after working as the head of the emergency department at Samsung Medical Center 서울삼성병원. He also served as the spokesman, public affairs director, general affairs director and the vice chairman of the Korean Medical Association 대한의사협회.
Song was the president of GemVax & KAEL’s 젬백스앤카엘 bio division.
“The primary goal of companies that develop new drugs is to make medicines that help patients,” said Song in an e-mail to his employees. “If we make good medicine, money will follow. As soon as a drugmaker's goal becomes money, it will ruin everything.”
GemVax & KAEL, established in 1998 under the name KAEL Environmental Research Institute, a semiconductor and display filter manufacturing company, changed their name to the current one in 2009 and merged with its subsidiary in 2014.
The company developed GV1001, also known as Riavax, which aims to treat pancreatic cancer, Alzheimer's and prostate hyperplasia, in 2014. The drug received a conditional marketing authorization as a pancreatic cancer therapy in Korea.
Riavax has entered phase 3 clinical trials for pancreatic cancer and phase 2 clinical trials for Alzheimer's. In May, the company completed phase 2 clinical trials for prostate hyperplasia.