Chugai Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. announced that it has decided to establish a subsidiary, “Chugai Pharma Korea Co., Ltd.,” with the aim of obtaining marketing authorization for pharmaceutical products and building an in-house sales structure in South Korea. The new company is scheduled to be incorporated on November 2, 2026.
The pharmaceutical market in South Korea is expected to achieve sustained growth, driven by factors such as rapid population aging and national policies aimed at improving access to innovative medicines. While South Korea is part of Chugai’s development and sales territory under its strategic alliance with Roche, the company has to date primarily developed its business in the South Korean market through out-licensing to local partner companies, given its local resources and its product portfolio at the time. However, Chugai now has a series of innovative pipeline assets that embody the company’s drug discovery capabilities, including sparsentan and NXT007, and, looking ahead, next-generation macrocyclic peptide drugs. Against the backdrop of this significant strengthening of its proprietary pipeline, Chugai has determined that, in the South Korean market going forward, building an in-house, integrated structure that spans from obtaining regulatory approval through to sales will maximize product value, thereby enabling Chugai to make a greater contribution to patients while also strongly driving the growth of the Chugai Group.
The new company will serve as the core base for Chugai in South Korea. In anticipation of future new product launches, Chugai will expand the subsidiary’s functions and workforce in a phased manner, aiming to build a structure capable of filing applications and obtaining marketing authorization, and subsequently to establish a sales structure toward product launch.
“I am delighted that we are taking a new step forward to establish our own base in the continuously growing South Korean market and to deliver innovative medicines to patients more ourselves. Under our strategic alliance with Roche, South Korea, like Japan and Taiwan, is an important market in which Chugai holds development and marketing rights. Drawing on the experience and expertise we have cultivated to date, we will build a structure that integrates everything from obtaining approval to supply and sales, and thereby contribute to the advancement of healthcare in South Korea and to the health of patients,” said Chugai’s president and CEO, Dr. Osamu Okuda.
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