Pfizer isn’t the only pharmaceutical company with a Covid-19 vaccine – South Korea’s Celltrion does too, but who’s the biotech billionaire behind it?

Nov 16 , 2020

Seo Jung-jin, co-founder and chairman of Celltrion. Photo: Celltrion

He started at Samsung and Daewoo Motors, but when Seo Jung-jin lost his job he turned to biosimilars, even borrowing money from loan sharks to fund his company – now he’s the second-richest man in South Korea

While many of the world’s billionaires are born into wealthy backgrounds, more and more of the richest people on the planet – and especially today’s tech entrepreneurs – are self-made. The second-richest man in South Korea, Seo Jung-jin, is a striking example – he’s the billionaire co-founder behind Celltrion, the country’s most successful pharmaceutical company by revenue.

Not to be mistaken for the South Korean footballer of the same name, Seo Jung-jin is currently worth US$11.8 billion, and continues to lead South Korea’s distribution of biological medicines worldwide.

His company is currently focused on developing a Covid-19 vaccine candidate, with second-phase clinical trials expected to conclude by the end of the year, and plans for it to become immediately available for emergency usage in Korea soon after.

Here are four things to know about the brain behind the biotech unicorn.

He really wasn’t born well-off

Born into a family who sold coal briquettes, Seo worked as a taxi driver throughout his time at Konkuk University, where he studied industrial engineering. In the 1980s, he worked for Samsung Electro-Mechanics followed by Daewoo Motors, where he rose up through the ranks.

He got interested in biotech by chance