Lee & Ko’s (Managing Partner Yong Seok Ahn) Healthcare Team is considered to have the best experts in legal, governmental, industrial fields of healthcare among major Korean law firms. Lee & Ko’s Healthcare Team is jointly lead by Keum Nang Park, who has a master’s degree in pharmacology, and Hyung Geun Lee, an expert in M&A and corporate practice. The biggest strength of Lee & Ko’s Healthcare Team is that its attorneys who have diverse backgrounds in pharmacy, medicine, intellectual property, corporate practice, and M&A collaborate organically with professionals who have formerly worked at governmental organizations and multinational pharmaceutical companies.
In particular, it is noteworthy that Lee & Ko’s Healthcare Team includes a number of attorneys with science background to ensure an in-depth and accurate understanding of complicated healthcare issues. The team comprise of attorneys with pharmacist licenses, namely Keum Nang Park, Jihyun Koo, Ye-In Han, Sung Il Bang, Youjin Kim, Soo Yeon Park, as well as Hui Jin Yang, a former judge with a degree in biochemistry, Ji Hyun Yoo, an attorney with a medical license who previously worked as a physician at Asan Medical Center, and Eunkyoung Lyu, a former deputy director at the Ministry of Environment and former Patent Examiner at the KIPO with a degree in chemical engineering. Other team members include attorneys who have majored in bioengineering, chemistry, and nursing etc. One of the greatest strengths of Lee & Ko’s Healthcare Team is the synergistic capability of its professionals, many of whom have experience working in government agencies and in the industry.
Many experts who previously worked in government agencies are part of the Lee & Ko Healthcare Team, such as Senior Advisor Chemin Rim (former Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare), Senior Advisor Gunn Yik Son (former Vice Minister of the Ministry of Health and Welfare), Senior Advisor Kyung Su Kang (former Chief of Drug Administration at the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service) and Senior Consultant Ug Lee (former official at the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service).
In addition, there are experts with many years of experience in the industry, such as Senior Consultant Youngsik Byun and Dr. Sungju Kim, who worked at various global pharmaceutical companies in the area of market access. Mr. Byun and Dr. Kim stated, “although we are proud to be considered among the best experts in the field of market access, we have been able to understand the legal and regulatory aspects of the big framework in a comprehensive way by working with other experts collaboratively at Lee & Ko,” and added, “by adding our own experience from practice, we are confident of being able to provide the most accurate advice on any matter."
Supported by the top experts from both the government and industry sector, Lee & Ko’s Healthcare Team is regarded as a team that provides clients with the most practical and comprehensive consulting services for innovative medical services such as gene therapy, anticancer drugs, orphan drugs, companion diagnostic devices, and medical services using artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Co-team leader Hyung Geun Lee emphasized that this was possible “because the top experts are gathered into one team to provide a comprehensive solution for any issue that a client may face, including investment, joint research, technology licensing, approvals, drug pricing, compliance, intellectual property, litigation, M&A, etc.” He has advised on joint venture projects with Samsung Biologics on behalf of Biogen, and recently, also represented LG Household & Healthcare's acquisition of the GSK’s Physiogel business rights in Asia and North America.
Lee & Ko is also known for improving practices of the pharmaceutical industry that have continued for the past 13 years through litigation. In 2018, Lee & Ko was the first to raise the issue of the existing practice of automatic price reduction of original drugs when a generic drug is released in the market. As a result, the price reduction of many new drugs was suspended and greatly impacted the industry and government authorities. Keum Nang Park, who led the lawsuits at the time, explained that “it was very significant in that we provided a way for technology protection and new endeavors in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry to work in a virtuous cycle, and that we were able to provide our client with a bold new alternative option to challenge the problems of existing practices which everyone considered very difficult to solve.”