Federation of Asian Chemical Societies (FACS)

  Last updated on 25 Oct., 2001      

FACS Newsletter 2/2001

Recent Contribution of FACS
Economic Development Awardee

Strategy of Shifting a Conventional Chemical Company 
to High-Technology Chemicals Industry

Dr. Jong-Kee Yeo acts as President of LG Chemical Ltd. and President of LG Chem Research Park. While serving LG Chem Research Park for 20years, he has led a variety of corporate research programs to deliver remarkable research results. Since January 1996, as President of LG Chem Research Park, he has made meritorious efforts to contribute greatly toward LG Chem and the chemical industry through collaborative projects with excellent domestic and international research institutions and various research programs. Also, he has played a key role to provide a technological base for corporate and social benefit, and further he has made a great contribution to advancement of scientific technology through cooperation between industry, university and government research organizations by serving as a director of Korean Chemistry Society, The Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers, The Polymer Society of Korea, The Korean Society of Rheology, and Korea Chemical Industrial Association.

His performances over the past 10 years could be summarized as follows;

1989~1995 : While serving as the head of the polymer research institute under LG Chem Research Park, he had led successfully research programs relating to synthetic resins such as functional ABS, latex for coating, and functional materials such as acryl impact modifier and toner resin. It was his significant contribution to diversification of chemical and polymer products of LG Chem. Further, under his initiative, the research program on new catalysts with single active site, such as metallocene, was undertaken, and thereby, he laid a foundation for development of next-generation high performance chemicals and polymers. Now, various products developed under his direction have got to be a stable revenue source of LG Chem.

1996~2000 : Since January 1996, acting as President of LG Chem Research Park, he has enhanced the corporate research productivity continuously by enforcing the research and development strategy to prioritize and concentrate on prospective research programs, including the securing and training of creative and enthusiastic research personnel. In 1997, Korea got to be engulfed into a deep economic depression resulting from the foreign exchange crisis following the financial crisis having befallen Southeast Asian countries, which forced the Korean government to turn to the IMF for an economic rescue package. Such deep economic slump pressed Korean enterprises to suffer from many hardships, and a lot of Korean large enterprises had to reduce or abandon their R&D organizations in order to cut off the cost. However, LG Chem has steadily expanded its R&D investment with the perspectives that LG Chem cannot have a promising future without technology innovation. Such LG Chem’s R&D promotion policy is principally based on Dr. Yeo’s initiative for the prioritization and concentration strategy. First of all, most of LG Chem’s R&D resources have been invested in the fields of “Life Science” and “Materials for Information and Electronics” selected as the LG Chem’s future strategic business, and in the existing business field of chemicals and polymers, concentration has been given on currently business-oriented research programs. Thereby, LG Chem has succeeded in enhancing its R&D performance and productivity.

As a result, LG Chem made a great success to license out a couple of new chemical entities for new drugs to big pharmaceutical companies overseas. In addition, LG Chem successfully completed its research and development relating to recombination protein, such as interferon α, human growth hormone, animal growth hormone and erythropoietin, in the life science field. Such drugs are now produced and distributed on the market. LG Chem has a plan to release such biopharmaceutical drugs to the global market in the strategic partnership with a European partner.

LG Chem has also obtained many research results in the agrochemical field on which it has continuously invested. A new highly-active herbicide with low toxicity and a new fungicide for the fruits farming, which have been successfully developed, are about to be debuted on the global market.

In the field of materials for information technology, the development of lithium ion rechargable battery is especially remarkable. This field, of which the R&D started from 1997 on a full-scale, represented a new business field that LG Chem had to develop at any risk incidental thereto. Dr. Yeo applied the so-called rugby-style R&D tactics, the concurrent process of the R&D activities of lab. scale, pilot scale and even the production in parallel in order to lead the fast track R&D. Thereby, lithium ion batteries could be mass-produced only in two years after the start-up of the R&D. Despite such difficulty lacking the core technologies, LG Chem succeeded in developing the lithium ion battery product having better performance and higher capacity than the conventional products. Thanks to this meritorious effort, LG Chem had the honor of winning “The President Award – The Best IR 52 Jang-Young Shil Award” in 1999 for development of the lithium ion recharagble battery. Lithium ion batteries are currently available on the domestic market, and further are being exported to the global market. LG Chem is also producing the best quality polymer for rechargable batteries, which is also the outcome of internal R&D.

LG Chem Research Park, under Dr. Yeo’s brilliant leadership, has continuously brought series of new products in the area of materials for information technology, photoresists for color filter, optical films such as polarizer film and retardation film for TFT-LCD, the phosphors for plasma display panels, toners and inks, and dielectric materials for semiconductor, etc. which are all successfully commercialized over the past three years.

LG Chem Research Park was thus selected as the best industrial research center in recognition of the superior research results as described above and had the honor of winning the President Award from the Government of Korea in 2000.

Awardee curriculum vitae

Dr. Jong-Kee Yeo graduated from Lehigh University, Pennsylvania, USA in 1981 majoring Chemical Engineering. His professional experiences include Research Assistant in Material Center, Lehigh University from 1977-1980, senior Managing Director of Lucky Ltd. from 1992 to 1995 and senior Executive Vice President of LG Chemical Ltd. from 1996 to 1999. He is currently President of LG Chemical Ltd. His professional affiliations include: Korean Institute of Chemical Engineers, Korean Chemical Society, Polymer Science of Korea, Korean Rheological Society, Society of Plastic Engineers and American Chemical Society. The honors he received include Gold Medal for Excellent Achievement in R&D from Lucky Ltd. in 1982, Order of Industrial Service Merit-Tin Tower from Korean Government in 1984, Industrial Technology Achievement Award from Korea Institute of Chemical Engineers in 1985, and Industrial R&D Achievement Award from Polymer Society of Korea in 1988.

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