Hana Pharmaceutical R&D Executive Sells Entire Shareholding, but New Drug and CMO Initiatives Continue

Hana Pharmaceutical’s Kim Sang-yeop, head of the New Product Research Office, sold all 2,022 shares he held on the open market, according to a regulatory filing. The sale took place June 24 at 8,480 won per share, for total proceeds of approximately 17.14 million won. Following the sale, Kim’s stake in Hana Pharmaceutical fell to zero shares, eliminating the 0.01% holding reported in the previous filing dated June 16, 2025.

Kim was appointed an unregistered executive on Aug. 1, 2024, and leads the New Product Research Office. A former member of Boryung Pharmaceutical’s formulation research team, he is known as one of the key executives recruited to strengthen Hana Pharmaceutical’s R&D operations along with CEO Choi Tae-hong and others.

However, given that the sale amounted to only about 17 million won and Hana Pharmaceutical has 17,772,946 shares outstanding, the prevailing view is that the transaction is unlikely to be a negative signal about the company’s fundamentals. Analysts say the sale was more likely driven by personal funding needs.

■ Transition to a global CMO base, with 116.1 billion won investment

Hana Pharmaceutical is accelerating its transformation from a business structure centered on generics to a global contract manufacturing organization (CMO) focused on anesthetics. The key product is Byfavo Injection, an ultra-short-acting general anesthetic whose active ingredient is remimazolam. Hana Pharmaceutical holds the marketing rights for the product in South Korea and six Southeast Asian countries. Because remimazolam manufacturing facilities exist only in Italy, China and South Korea worldwide, Hana Pharmaceutical’s value as a production base is considered distinctive.

To support this effort, Hana Pharmaceutical invested a total of 116.1 billion won in facilities, including 58.5 billion won in its Hagil plant and 56.8 billion won in a new injectable-drug plant in Pyeongtaek. The Hagil plant has already obtained European Medicines Agency (EU-GMP) certification and has completed an inspection by Japan’s Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). Sangsangin Securities said, “Because there are very few Byfavo production facilities worldwide, Hana Pharmaceutical has sufficient potential to establish itself as a global first vendor in Asia.”

■ Phase 1 approval for P-CAB drug candidate signals R&D advance

Alongside its CMO business, the company is also accelerating development of its own new drugs. Hana Pharmaceutical’s first internally discovered potassium-competitive acid blocker (P-CAB) drug candidate, HN01001, received approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to begin a phase 1 clinical trial. P-CABs are a drug class experiencing rapidly increasing global demand in the gastroesophageal reflux disease treatment market, where South Korean pharmaceutical companies are actively competing. Hana Pharmaceutical’s entry into clinical development is being viewed as a signal that it is formally transitioning from a generic-drug company to a new drug developer.

R&D spending has also increased by more than 150% from previous levels to approximately 13.4 billion won annually, with about 6% of sales allocated to research and development. Net income in the first quarter of 2026 rose 135.8% from the same period a year earlier to 10 billion won, indicating a clear improvement in profitability.

Industry experts say three factors, rather than the executive’s small-scale share sale, will be key to determining Hana Pharmaceutical’s corporate value: whether the company receives plant approval from Japan’s PMDA and begins exports to Mundipharma; the performance of Byfavo launches in Southeast Asian markets, beginning with the Philippines; and the acquisition of phase 1 data for HN01001.