Kim Seung-won's Clinical Trial Lobbying Scandal Was Never Truly Laid to Rest
Suspicions that Justice Minister nominee Kim Seung-won had solicited approval for a clinical trial of a COVID-19 treatment reignited on the 2nd, just ahead of his National Assembly confirmation hearing (the process by which the legislature vets a nominee's qualifications before approving a cabinet appointment), when a text message reading "I apologize," sent to Seo Young-kyo, chair of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee, was captured by a news outlet's camera.
A clinical trial is the process of verifying a new drug's efficacy and safety in human subjects, and it can proceed only with approval from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. According to the relevant court ruling obtained by The Hankyoreh, Kim was investigated by prosecutors on suspicion that in 2021, at the request of an acquaintance surnamed Yang, he asked then-Food and Drug Safety Commissioner Kim Gang-lip to greenlight the clinical trial of a COVID-19 treatment under development by a pharmaceutical company. Kim texted the commissioner at the time, asking that "the officials in charge be allowed to process (the approval) quickly," and said he had raised the matter because he "was also worried about the outflow of national wealth." Commissioner Kim replied that he had "passed the request along so it would be taken care of," and Kim relayed the response to Yang verbatim.
The pharmaceutical company in question was looking to pump up its share price through the clinical trial approval. As word of the approval timeline leaked out, the stock did indeed swing up and down repeatedly. The investigation also surfaced suspicions that the company had attempted to send Kim 5 million won in political donations.
Citing the absence of any direct exchange of money between Kim and officials of the pharmaceutical company, as well as the difficulty of definitively establishing the illegality of the solicitation, prosecutors issued a suspended indictment—a decision not to prosecute—in December 2024. Kim filed a constitutional petition, arguing that the disposition's "legal basis was flawed."
The opposition escalated its offensive, seizing on the suspended indictment. On the 2nd, after releasing to the media the text messages Kim had sent to then-Commissioner Kim Gang-lip, independent lawmaker Han Dong-hoon said, "He knows better than anyone that this is not the only text involving unlawful solicitation." Questioning Kim's moral responsibility, he added, "Many people suffered losses as the stock price swung on the clinical trial approval." Na Kyung-won of the People Power Party said on YTN radio that day, "The core issue is the suspicion of lobbying the food and drug safety agency," criticizing that "a suspended indictment means there is wrongdoing, but it goes unprosecuted because it is deemed minor." Yoon Sang-hyun, also of the People Power Party, called for the release of the written disposition so the public could see for itself the scope of the charges Kim acknowledged and the reasons behind them.
