Oh Se-woong, vice president and head of the Central Research Institute, who led Yuhan Corp.'s new drug R&D, has left the company. With the company focusing efforts on discovering the second Leclaza, attention is turning to how Yuhan will fill this key R&D leadership vacancy.

According to biopharmaceutical industry sources, Vice President Oh recently resigned from Yuhan Corp. after over 14 years with the company. After joining in 2011, Oh participated in the development of Leclaza, a treatment for non-small cell lung cancer. He was appointed head of the Central Research Institute in 2020, assuming a key role overseeing the company's overall new drug development.

After earning his Ph.D. in veterinary medicine from Seoul National University, Oh began his career at JW Pharmaceutical in 1995. Having gained experience in anticancer drug development at JW Pharmaceutical, he joined Yuhan Corp. in 2011, which was then focusing on anticancer research. He is credited with making significant contributions to the development process as the lead researcher for Leclaza.

“Vice President Oh's departure is true,” a Yuhan Corp. official said. “Executive Vice President Choi Young-ki is currently acting as the head of the research institute.”

Although Vice President Oh rose to the position of research institute head through the successful technology transfer and commercialization of Leclaza, insiders suggest that he failed to deliver clear results in discovering next-generation pipelines. Expectations for the license-out of the allergy drug pipeline YH12825, introduced from GI Innovation, have persisted over the past two to three years, but no tangible results have materialized to date. Furthermore, the metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) treatment candidate YH25724, which was technology-transferred to Boehringer Ingelheim in March this year, has also been returned.

Following Oh's departure, Yuhan's new drug development is expected to operate under a system centered on President Kim Yeol-hong, Head of R&D, with Vice President Lee Young-mi, Head of the R&D Division, also participating. Additionally, Executive Vice President Choi, the Deputy Director of the Central Research Institute, who joined the organization last year, is serving as Acting Director of the Central Research Institute and leading the organization.

Executive Vice President Choi earned a master's degree in pharmaceutical science from Seoul National University and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Oregon State University in the U.S. He then worked on small molecule drug discovery at Boehringer Ingelheim in 2005, served as a senior research scientist focused on chemical technology development at Forma Therapeutics, and acted as discovery research director at Alkermes, an Irish biopharmaceutical company.

The pipelines currently receiving the most attention from the company are YH32367 and YH32364, which were introduced by ABL Bio. The indications for these new drugs are already highly competitive global markets, demanding rapid development and differentiated commercialization strategies. Although Lee Young-mi, former Head of R&BD at Hanmi Pharm, joined in 2023, Yuhan has yet to achieve any significant global results since her recruitment.

“Following Vice President Oh Se-woong's departure, significant changes within Yuhan Corp.'s R&D organization are inevitable,” an industry executive said. “There is an internal sense of urgency that tangible results are needed not only in clinical development but also in business development to discover the next Leclaza.”