SK Bioscience is recruiting executives from multinational pharmaceutical companies ahead of its full-scale overseas business expansion.
The company said Friday it has recruited Richard Kensinger, a former research executive at global healthcare company Sanofi Pasteur, as the vice president of R&D project management for SK Bioscience USA, its U.S. offshoot, and Kenneth Lee, head of the commercial division for GenScript ProBio, as the vice president of Pangyo R&D Center's biologic business development unit.
Kensingers has over 20 years of experience leading research in global biotechnology companies. He served as executive director of process development and protein sciences at Affinivax, recently acquired by GSK, and executive director of global bioprocess expert at Sanofi Pasteur.
He majored in health sciences at Eastern University, the U.S., and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Pennsylvania State University.
According to the company, Kensingers will promote SK Bioscience's global R&D major research tasks discovery and management, system establishment, process research, and cooperation tasks with global partners in the future.
Notably, SK Bioscience, which obtained EU-GMP (good manufacturing practice) certificate for the first time as a Korean vaccine manufacturing facility, recruited Kensingers to enhance its R&D and process systems capabilities to cGMP levels. The company hopes that such efforts will strengthen its global competitiveness and speed up its entry into the U.S.
Lee started his career at Gilead Sciences and worked at various Korean and foreign biopharmaceutical companies, such as CrystalGenomics, Biomarin Pharmaceuticals, Binex, and Samsung Bioepis.
He is an expert with various practical experiences in R&D, business development, and M&A. He studied Molecular Cell Biology at UC Berkeley and earned an MBA from Insead Business School in France.
Notably, GenScript ProBio, Lee's latest workplace before joining SK Bioscience, is a global bio contract research organization (CRO) and contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) company that has high-quality cell and gene therapy (CGT) one-stop virus vector process development and GMP production platform.
Based on his specialized experience in the CGT field, the company hopes that Lee will accelerate SK Bioscience's new growth strategy, CGT platform, and play a pivotal role in discovering bio businesses other than vaccines and securing future growth engines.
The addition of Kensinger and Lee to the management team follows SK Bioscience recruiting various high-ranking officials from international organizations since last year.
In October of last year, the company announced that it had recruited, Harry Kleanthous, Senior Program Officer at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Sally Choe, director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Office of Generic Drugs (OGD).
"Now is the time to expand beyond Korea based on our heightened status in the global market," SK Bioscience CEO Ahn Jae-yong said. "We advance and specialize our business through strategic global talent recruitment to become a top-tier in the vaccine and bio-industry that competes with global big pharma companies."