From Makers Of Weight-Loss Pills To Anti-Wrinkle Shots, Meet South Korea’s Lab-Grown Billionaires |
This story is part of Forbes’ coverage of Korea’s Richest 2026. See the full list here.
In January, Sam Chun Dang Pharm struck potential gold in its efforts to develop a pill version of Denmark-based Novo Nordisk’s blockbuster weight-loss injectable Wegovy. It signed an agreement, the terms of which were not publicly disclosed, with Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo to jointly develop and sell the slimming medication, which uses Sam Chun Dang’s proprietary S-Pass technology to turn injectable medicines into easy-to-take pills.
The Korean company’s shares rocketed following the announcement, catapulting its chairman, Yoon Dae-in, onto the ranks of Korea’s 50 Richest at No. 10 with a $5.9 billion fortune. (Its stock fell after net worths were locked in when the stock exchange regulator issued a notice to Sam Chun Dang Pharm for inadequate disclosure of its financial results. The company did not respond to Forbes Asia’s request for a comment.)
Two other pharma entrepreneurs join the ranks for the first time: U.S.-trained biologist Lee Sang-hoon (No. 39, $1.4 billion), founder and CEO of ABL Bio in Seoul; and Hyuntae Kim (No. 40, $1.3 billion), CEO of Voronoi, known for its AI-powered drug discovery tech, with two potential cancer drugs in the pipeline.
These recently minted fortunes put the spotlight on Korea’s biotech sector as a new path to riches in a country where businesses such as electronics, semiconductors and even online gaming have generated immense wealth for decades. (Think Samsung, Hanmi Semiconductor and Nexon.)
According to Ho-Cheol Lee, senior analyst at Shinhan Securities, gaining the trust of global pharma majors has been key to the sector’s success. In the past year alone, according to Lee, Korean companies have signed more than a dozen joint research agreements with multinational giants, up from seven in 2024. “This marks a dramatic acceleration,” he notes. “Until 2023, the sector averaged fewer than three such deals annually.”
Take the case of Lee’s ABL Bio, which was set up just a decade ago and listed in 2018. The firm inked a $2.6 billion licensing and joint research agreement with U.S.-headquarterted Eli Lilly in November, to jointly develop new therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, using ABL Bio’s Grabody-B, a blood-brain barrier-penetrating bispecific antibody technology. Lilly also agreed to take a stake in the Korean company, sending ABL Bio’s shares through the roof. Lee, an American citizen, studied at Harvard Medical School and worked at leading companies such as U.S.-based Genentech before starting his own venture.
The rising profile of the country’s pharma players follows their notable moves to evolve from being domestic manufacturers by investing in serious R&D, says Shinhan analyst Lee. This shift, he adds, was driven by “several pioneer companies that successfully secured multibillion dollar licensing deals with Big Pharma.”
These forward thinkers include Celltrion’s Seo Jung-jin (No. 3, $8.1 billion) and Park Soon-jae (No. 22, $2.6 billion), founder of Alteogen. The latter secured a $450 million licensing deal with U.S.-based Merck in 2024 for a cancer drug, which caused its shares to jump, landing Park on the list of the country’s richest for the first time that year. “These milestones proved that Korean biotech could move beyond domestic production to high-stakes R&D,” says Lee.