South Korea’s Daewoong Pharmaceutical said Monday that it has restructured its research and development units to lend a boost to its new drug development efforts.

The Korean pharma company said that its R&D workforce will now work in different project-oriented groups called “extreme teams” designed to achieve specific goals of a particular project. Each team will focus on a different project, and be disbanded once the project ends.

As a result, Daewoong’s R&D workforce will be divided into a new drug development center, a biotech center, new product center, each of which will house “extreme teams.” Two special teams, the CTO Strategy team and non-clinical development team, will also be formed.


The new drug development center will house six extreme teams focused on areas like APA anti-ulcer agents, SGLT2 inhibitors for diabetes treatments and PRS anti-fibrotic agents.

The biotech center will have two teams, each focused on one-stop proof of concept development and smart stem cell therapies. The new product development center will house a team dedicated to Daewoong’s proprietary Depot platform.

“This restructuring will become a foothold for Daewoong to become a more flexible and active organization,” said Daewoong Pharmaceutical CEO Jeon Seng-ho. “Through the changes, we hope to birth many in-house startups and to help our employees bring their vision to life.”

By Sohn Ji-young (jys@heraldcorp.com)