Samyang Group Chairman Kim Yoon.

Samyang Group is implementing change and innovation to gear up for growth in the group’s areas, ranging from corporate culture to business portfolios.

The group has set expansion of its presence in global markets, securing specialty high-performance products and execution of new projects as key business portfolio tasks. The group has summed up open innovation and “digital innovation” as a driving force behind portfolio innovation. Samyang Group has core mainstay businesses: food, chemical, packing and pharmaceutical & bio.

The group finds it easy to produce new technologies and products since each business category is closely related. The group is concentrating on boosting communications and collaboration so that technology convergence can be attained by eliminating partitions among businesses.

In 2014, Samyang became the first company to succeed in commercializing isosorbide, representing an example of the group’s in-house technology convergence. Isosorbide is a plant-based platform chemical from which biodegradable derivatives of various functionality can be obtained.
Isosorbide, which is of great scientific as a monomer building block for biopolyme

ric polycarbonates, polyesters, polyurethanes and epoxides, was first produced by Roquette, a French company which produces by-products from the starch extracted from corn, wheat, potatoes and peas.

Plastics, made of isosorbide, boast strengths such as durability, heat-resisting property, and penetrability. The chemical is enjoying popularity as a raw material for producing mobile gadgets, TV, and other home appliance outing materials, food containers, and eco-friendly construction materials.

Samyang Group’s efforts to promote communications and collaboration among subsidiaries have paid off. MediAnswer, a skin fit collagen eye mask, is a brand produced through collaboration among the pharmaceutical & bio business and the cosmetics business.

MediAnswer, taking advantage of the strengths of Samyang Biopharm and About Me, has released skin elasticity care products such as MediAnswer Collagen Lift-up Band. Samyang Group is accelerating efforts to commercialize technologies by combining its own capabilities and outside technology, marketing and infrastructure.

Samyang is adopting a one-stop strategy of developing raw materials and parts in the composite material segment, simultaneously through open innovation.

In 2018, Samyang Research Institute signed an MOU on the development of car composite materials and parts with the Korea Institute of Carbon Convergence Technology, other research institutes, parts and molding companies. Samyang plans to expand supply of car parts through the development of carbon composite materials.

Samyang Biopharm is challenging the development of new drugs as the company has established an overseas operation in Boston, the United States. Samyang Biopharm USA is striving to explore new drug candidate technologies and substances at an early clinical testing stage through the networking with global companies and research institutes and accelerate the development of new drugs through licensing.

The Kendall Square area in which Samyang Biopharm USA is located is clustered with global pharmaceutical companies and research facilities such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Novartis, Pfizer, and BioZen.

One of Samyang Group’s business buzzwords for this year is digital innovation. Samyang Group Chairman Kim Yoon and major executives toured CES 2019 held in Las Vegas early this year. The trip was designed to share information on digital utilization at the fair of highlighting forefront digital technologies.

Samyang Group is trying to boost digital technology investments and utilizations all over the place of the group. The group’s research institute has built infrastructure such as database and utilized it to develop digital technologies.