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Youngjin Kim
The chairman of BOD
Youngjin Kim is Chairman & CEO of Handok Inc. Founded in 1954, Handok has led the advancement of Korean pharmaceutical industry through key partnerships with industry-leading global pharmaceutical companies and the early adoption of global standard systems.
Youngjin Kim began his career in 1984 at Hoechst AG, then a joint venture partner of Handok, and has served in various leadership roles within Handok’s joint ventures throughout his career before being appointed Chairman & CEO of Handok in 2006.
Recognized as a leader in the industry, Youngjin has been honored with numerous recognitions, including the Prime Minister’s Citation in 2000 for his contribution to Korea’s industrial development and the Bronze Tower Order of Industrial Service Merit in 2005 for improving cooperation between labor and management.
Youngjin is President of Handok Jeseok Foundation since 2014. He has also served as President of KDG (Korean-German Society) since 2010.
Youngjin graduated from Yonsei University in Korea with a BA in business administration in 1979. He earned his MBA from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University in 1984 and also received the award of Distinguished Alumni Fellows from the university. Youngjin completed the Advanced Management Program at the Harvard Business School in 1996.
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Sungjune Hong
Executive, CFO
Sungjune is an executive board member of Genexine, and he is responsible for all managerial support functions of the company, including financial strategy, accounting, investor and public relations, legal and SCM.
Sungjune previously served as President and COO of ROKIT Healthcare, where he supervised all managerial functions of the company. Before joining ROKIT, Sung June was CFO at Handok, Schneider Electric and Nike Korea. He began his professional career as a certified public accountant at Arthur Andersen.
Sungjune holds an MBA and BA in Business Administration from Yonsei University. He also received an LLM from Vanderbilt Law School. Sungjune is a member of KICPA, AICPA, and New York Bar.
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Hyukjong Lee
Other Non-Executive
Mr. Hyukjong Lee is an entrepreneur and a leader in the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industry with more than 20 years of experience. He is currently the CEO and President of Binex which is known to be one of the top biologics CDMO in Asia where he has been in charge of corporate strategy planning and global business development, etc. He is the co-founder of Binex Holdings, the largest shareholder of Binex. Prior to his career at Binex, he has mainly been responsible for strategy planning and business development as the CEO at Genexine from 2005 to 2011. He is also an expert in the finance field with experience at Daewoo Securities.
Mr. Hyukjong Lee holds a B.A. in Business Administration, a M.A. in Finance at Seoul National University, and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley.
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Jinkeon Pai
Non-Executive
Dr. Pai Jinkeon graduated from the Department of Biochemistry of Yonsei University in 1974 and received Ph.D. at the School of Pharmacy, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in 1982. Since 1986 Dr. Pai has worked as a senior researcher at Schering-Plough in the United States for 24 years.
Since returning to Korea in 2008, he served as Executive Director of R&D, JW Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and CEO of C&C New Drug Development Research Institute. Dr. Pai was essential in introducing open innovation at Handok Pharmaceuticals for five years. After retiring at Handok, he was the Vice President of the Abnoa Research Institute in Korea. He currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Innocure Therapeutics and an in-house board director. He is also helping startups as the head of the Technology Assessment Team at the WoojungBio New Drug Discovery Cluster.
He published 'Development of New Medicine to Save People' and 'Basic Story of Saving People in COVID-19' and has written more than 400 columns for ordinary people.
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Peter N. Laivins
Non-Executive
Peter N. Laivins is an Independent consultant and Founder of Neurocognitive Insights LLC. An experienced executive with integrity and proven leadership of both commercial and clinical development for emerging biotech and large pharma, provides c-suite level advice to leaders of growth-oriented companies.
Most recently, Peter served as Chief Commercial Officer for Alzheon Inc., a privately-held neuroscience company, overseeing strategy, communications, and investor development. Prior to Alzheon, as Senior Vice President of Strategic development program leadership in R&D at Tesaro Inc., he led development core teams for the PARP-inhibitor ZEJULA© and multiple immuno-oncology assets (anti-PD1, anti-TIM3, and anti-LAG3).
At Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, as Senior Vice President - Late-stage clinical development, he was responsible for the phase 3 development and FDA approval of ONIVYDE© - the first new therapy for metastatic pancreatic cancer in 20 years.
During a 20+ year tenure at Pfizer Inc., Peter held roles of increasing responsibility culminating as Senior Director / Group Leader, Pfizer US Oncology, where he built a cross-functional oncology business unit and led the launch of SUTENT© - a breakthrough oral tyrosine kinase inhibitor for renal cell carcinoma. A graduate of McGill University (Montreal) with a BSc in microbiology and immunology, and MBA in marketing and corporate policy, originally from Montreal Canada, Peter now resides in Scituate Massachusetts, USA.
Through integrity and diversity of leadership experience across the spectrum of research, development and commercialization, we believe that Peter Laivins brings a powerful combination of skills qualifying him as a Board member for Genexine.