Kim Seung-won says he only relayed a complaint in ‘new drug lobbying’ controversy

Justice minister nominee Kim Seung-won says his role in the COVID-19 drug controversy was limited to passing along a complaint. He said the complaint warned that approval of a treatment’s clinical trial could be unfairly delayed.

Kim said he contacted Kim Kang-lip, then head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, on Oct. 12, 2021. His message reportedly identified GenNCell and asked that officials handle the matter more quickly. The ministry approved the company’s Phase 2 and 3 trial plan on Oct. 26 that year.

He denied checking on the approval afterward or taking part in the review. He also said he had no separate contact with working-level officials at the ministry. Kim said he simply passed the ministry chief’s response back to the complainant.

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I contacted the head of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety only to relay a civil complaint that the clinical trial procedure for the treatment might be unfairly delayed.

A separate issue concerns Kim’s past association with a judge who later handled a warrant matter involving a GenNCell-related individual, and with broker Yang. Kim said he encountered them by chance at a private gathering around February 2022, roughly two years before the warrant review. He said he neither met nor contacted them afterward, and did not know about the December 2023 warrant request and dismissal.

Kim added that the judge did not participate in the relevant warrant review. He said two warrant requests for Yang were considered and rejected by different judges. “Arguing that the nominee exerted influence over the trial based on an old photograph unrelated to the warrant review distorts the facts and the sequence of events,” he said.

Kim also addressed a 5 million won political donation that GenNCell’s then-largest shareholder tried to send in December 2021. He said his fundraising account had been presented only as a general, lawful way to make political donations, with no connection to any complaint or trial approval. When Yang said the transfer was difficult, Kim said he did not ask him to proceed and instead indicated that the fundraising period had already ended.

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Arguing that the nominee exerted influence over the trial based on an old photograph unrelated to the warrant review distorts the facts and the sequence of events.