[비즈한국] It has been confirmed that Yuhan Corporation has spun off its existing bio business organization to launch a separate entity, ‘Yuhan Biotech Corporation’. This move is interpreted as a strategic reorganization by Yuhan Corporation, which has been securing new drug pipelines through open innovation, to cultivate its bio business as an independent pillar of growth.
According to industry sources on the 31st, Yuhan Corporation filed for the trademarks ‘Yuhan Biotech’ and its English corporate name ‘Yuhan Biotech Corporation’ with the Korean Intellectual Property Office on the 14th. It was also confirmed that the relevant registration procedures were completed on the 20th of this month.
A Yuhan Corporation official explained, “We created the company by spinning off the division that handled the bio business at Fermentech, and the company name is Yuhan Biotech,” adding, “It is an organization responsible for the bio business, including probiotics.”
Fermentech is a company that produces bioreactors required for stages such as microbial cell culture, and Yuhan Corporation held a 12.6% stake in the company as of the end of March. The newly launched Yuhan Biotech has a capital of approximately 1.1 billion KRW, and its CEO is Kang Dae-sik. CEO Kang joined Yuhan Corporation in 1997 and serves as the Executive Director of the Production Division.
The establishment of this corporation is seen as a move to increase professionalism and agility by separating the existing business organization into a distinct entity. Microbial-based bio businesses, such as probiotics, are gaining attention in the pharmaceutical industry as a high-growth sector due to their potential for expansion into various fields, including functional materials and the microbiome, based on capabilities in strain development, cultivation, and commercialization.
Yuhan Corporation has been recognized as one of the most proactive companies in the domestic pharmaceutical industry regarding open innovation strategies. It has made strategic investments in companies like ImmuneOncia and AdPharma, and recently invested 30 billion KRW in the bispecific antibody platform company ProGen to become its largest shareholder, consistently expanding its new drug pipeline through collaborations with external biotech firms.
This open innovation strategy led to the success of Leclaza. Yuhan Corporation licensed, developed, and subsequently transferred the technology for the candidate substance discovered by Genosco, a subsidiary of Oscotec, to Johnson & Johnson (J&J). Following its FDA approval in 2024, Leclaza entered the global market and established itself as a representative success story of open innovation in the Korean pharmaceutical industry.
Industry insiders interpret Yuhan Corporation’s spin-off of its bio business as an effort to secure a growth axis separate from its existing pharmaceutical and new drug development businesses. While new drug development requires long-term investment and clinical processes, the bio-healthcare sector—such as probiotics and bio-materials—can serve as a stable growth foundation due to its relatively faster commercialization.
An independent entity can establish decision-making structures tailored to its business characteristics and is also advantageous for securing specialized talent and engaging in external collaborations. If Yuhan Biotech expands its business scope beyond probiotics to include areas like the microbiome and functional bio-materials in the future, it could potentially emerge as Yuhan Corporation’s next-generation growth platform.