Prosecutors raid Daewoong Pharmaceutical, charges not verified yet

Daewoong Pharmaceutical is under a prosecutors’ investigation, with industry sources suggesting Friday that the subject of the probe is trade secret misappropriation.

The Seoul Central District Prosecutor’s Office said it conducted a search and seizure operation at Daewoong’s headquarters in Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Thursday.

Officials from the prosecutor’s office did not disclose charges against the South Korean pharmaceutical firm.

Some industry sources raised speculation that the recent investigation could be related to the legal battle between Daewoong and Medytox over misappropriation of trade secrets.

So far, the prosecutor’s office only confirmed that its latest probe has nothing to do with the two previous charges against Daewoong, brought by the Fair Trade Commission and the Korean Intellectual Property Office.

In March, the FTC accused Daewoong of allegedly abusing its patent rights by filing a false patent infringement lawsuit against a competitor. The FTC suspected Daewoong filed the lawsuit to deliberately block a generic from entering the market.

In April, the Korean Intellectual Property Office also filed a complaint against Daewoong, accusing the pharmaceutical firm of overstating its bioequivalence studies when applying for a patent regarding antiulcer treatment Albis D.


By Shim Woo-hyun (ws@heraldcorp.com)