JW Pharmaceutial

In 1945, Sungcheon Lee Gi Seok founded Chosun Pharmaceutical Pharma (now JW Pharmaceutical) and devoted himself to the development of Pharmaceuticals based on the spirit of respect of life. He has been leading the domestic therapeutic medicines industry such as localizing the fluid, which was dependent on imports in 1959.

Born in Gimpo, Gyeonggi province on March 17, 1910, he became devout Buddhist which emphasized Buddha’s compassion and devoted to Chinese Literature which emphasized life and harmony by influence of his father.
Based on these two ideologies, Sungcheon devoted himself and his life to the production of fluid and medicine that are essential for patient care, in the spirit of life respect.

“The pharmaceutical companies dealing with life should produce only about one medicine ahead of their profits.”, he said. In the 1960s, even facing financial difficulties caused by ungenerous infusion production profit, CEO Lee Gi Seok did not hesitate to invest in the development of therapeutic medicine to save lives.

In 1964, he started to develop ‘Hartmann’ and ‘L-Arginine Injection’ and succeeded in developing ‘Gentamicin’, the first antibiotic in Korea. In 1969, he succeeded in synthesizing the antibiotic ‘Rizynomycine’, leading the domestic antibiotic market and in 1972, he succeeded in synthesizing the raw material of ‘Pivaroxine’, the most advanced antibiotic, and once again surprised the world.

Sungcheon did not care even it would cause harm to himself if the work is for national health and public benefit. In 1969, he stopped the operation of the plant for only one person and contributed greatly to the first kidney transplantation operation in Korea by dedicating on the production of peritoneal dialysis fluid which is essential for surgery.

In the 1970s, the company was reluctant to give permission for hot seller ‘HurraKill’, a rat poison pill, because it was ‘A life killing drug’ even though it made enormous contribution to saving the difficult company situation. Sungcheon Lee Gi Seok awarded the grand prize of the 5th Entrepreneur Awards, 23 years after he passed away in 1975. He was reappraised for his contribution to the development of the fluid medicine, one of the three medical revolutions of mankind. Take the spirit of Sungcheon Lee Gi Seok, the JW Group continues to focus on supplying essential medicines, including fluid, spreading the business of the public benefit first and practice corporate social responsibility.