SK Biopharm expands physician-scientist network in push for end-to-end drug development

SK Biopharm is significantly expanding the share of physician-scientists at its US operations and reinforcing its global research leadership as it upgrades an end-to-end research and development framework spanning new drug discovery, clinical development and commercialization.

The company said Tuesday that about 20 percent of the specialized medical staff — covering clinical development, pharmacovigilance and medical affairs — at its US subsidiary SK Life Science are now physicians with hands-on clinical experience in the United States.

SK Biopharm currently has eight physician-scientists embedded in key R&D roles, including Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sunita Misra, a specialist in pediatric neurology and epilepsy. In July, the company recruited Kim Su-young, MD, as vice president of clinical development; Kim brings more than 18 years of oncology clinical leadership at global pharmaceutical companies Bristol Myers Squibb and AbbVie. The physician-scientists, who include alumni of the National Cancer Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center, are tasked with incorporating unmet medical needs from the earliest stages of drug discovery to improve the odds of successful commercialization.

SK Biopharm has also restructured its R&D organization and brought in new leadership. The company appointed Dr. Kim Tae-ho, a global neuroscience expert, as the inaugural head of its neuroscience division. Kim spent 12 years at Novartis overseeing neuroscience R&D and leading early-stage clinical and portfolio strategy. The company expanded its existing central nervous system research function into the new neuroscience division and placed it directly under President Lee Dong-hoon.

In oncology, SK Biopharm is building expertise around two next-generation modalities: radiopharmaceutical therapy and targeted protein degradation. The radiopharmaceutical therapy program is led by Shin Yong-je, who is spearheading the development of a proprietary chelator platform and securing an isotope supply chain, while the targeted protein degradation program is directed by Dr. Ryan Krueger, chief scientific officer of SK Life Science Labs, the company's US-based research subsidiary.

Building on this foundation, the company is moving ahead with its "East-West Bridge" strategy — identifying promising drug candidates in Asia and channeling them through US clinical and commercialization infrastructure. Rather than confining itself to laboratory-based basic research, SK Biopharm aims to embed the real-world clinical experience of US-based prescribing physicians from the earliest stages of development, with the goal of maximizing both the clinical success rate and the speed of market entry for its next blockbuster drugs.

The reorganization goes beyond simply expanding research infrastructure. It is aimed at internalizing a physician-scientist network on par with global big pharma to reduce trial and error in developing next-generation drugs.

"A global new drug is not complete by simply identifying a promising compound — from the very beginning, you must also consider the therapeutic value it will deliver to actual patients and its practical utility at the point of care," President Lee Dong-hoon said. "We will maximize our ability to deliver the next generation of global drugs through close collaboration between physicians with clinical and prescribing experience and our research experts."