Jeil Pharmaceutical has officially entered a third-generation management era with the appointment of Han Sang cheol as co-CEO.
On March 25, Jeil Pharmaceutical announced that its board of directors had approved the appointment of Han Sang-cheol as co-CEO. As a result, the company will now be jointly led by professional executive Sung Seok je and Han Sang-cheol.
Han Sang-cheol is the grandson of Jeil Pharmaceutical’s late founder, Han Won seok, and the eldest son of Chairman Han Seung soo. He earned a degree in industrial engineering from Yonsei University and completed his MBA at the University of Rochester in the United States. Han joined Jeil Pharmaceutical in 2006 as a manager and went on to serve as Executive Director of Marketing and Executive Director of Corporate Planning. He was promoted to Executive Vice President in 2015 and became President of Jeil Pharmaceutical in 2023. Since 2017, he has concurrently served as CEO of Jeil Pharma Holdings, the parent company of Jeil Pharmaceutical.
Han is credited with playing a key role in the company’s growth by taking on major leadership roles and driving initiatives such as new drug R&D, business diversification, and the discovery of new ventures. Notably, he led the establishment of Onconic Therapeutics in 2020, a subsidiary focused on new drug development, which marked a strategic shift for Jeil Pharmaceutical away from a business model reliant mainly on product sales.
Last year, Onconic Therapeutics gained approval for ‘Zastaprazan’, a treatment for gastroesophageal reflux disease, as Korea’s 37th novel drug. Its follow-up pipeline includes the dual-target anticancer drug candidate ‘Nesuparib’, which is currently progressing smoothly in Phase 2 clinical trials.
With more achievements expected from its new drug pipeline, Jeil Pharmaceutical appears increasingly likely to succeed in its structural transformation through enhanced R&D.
A company official stated, “We aim to maximize the expertise of each co-CEO while strengthening responsible management to enhance corporate competitiveness.”
