Korea’s JW Group relocates to new building to bring affiliates, R&D together

JW Group’s new building in Gwacheon Knowledge Information Town in Gyeonggi Province [Courtesy of JW Group]

South Korea’s JW Group relocated its headquarters to its new building in Gwacheon Knowledge Information Town in Gyeonggi Province, with an aim to strengthen its research and development (R&D)-centered management system by bringing all research personnel scattered across the country together.

JW Group announced on Monday that it has relocated its headquarters to its new building, which has a total floor area of 35,557 square meters with four basement floors and 11 floors above ground. It is twice the total floor area used by the previous office building in Seocho district in the southern part of Seoul.

The new building also houses the research facilities of the group’s five core affiliates, including JW Pharmaceutical Corp., JW Shinyak Corp., JW CreaGene Co., JW Life Science Corp. and JW Bioscience, on five floors above ground, which represents more than half of the total floor area of the new building.

The new headquarters will serve as a large-scale convergence research facility where all researchers from the group, including about 200 pure research personnel, work, focusing on developing future growth engines, such as next-generation infusion solutions, precision in vitro diagnostic products, and advanced medical devices, in addition to developing innovative new drugs, which is the group’s main research area.

In particular, the group plans to increase research efficiency by integrating its research equipment and reagents with its own data science platform to explore new drug candidates, such as JWELRY and CLOVER. Furthermore, the group plans to upgrade its R&D platform to combine artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technology and establish a smart lab environment by introducing automated raw material synthesis robots.

The new headquarter also houses the development, management and marketing divisions of JW Holdings Corp., JW Pharmaceutical and JW Shinyak. In line with the relocation, the group introduced a smart office environment to allow flexible use of work spaces, such as real-time autonomous seating and a meeting room reservation system. The group also created a multi-purpose complex cultural space on the first and second floors that can be used by citizens.