Jooyup CHAE

Introduction

Jooyup Chae is a partner at Yulchon, leading the firm’s medtech and bio team. He brings nearly two decades of in-house experience as a senior legal executive at leading global and domestic companies across the medical device, pharmaceutical and industrial sectors. His practice focuses on advisory, transactional and dispute-resolution matters for multinational corporations, healthcare and life-science companies, and major Korean conglomerates.

Before joining Yulchon, he served as vice president, general counsel, and secretary to the board of directors at SK Biopharmaceuticals, and as general counsel of its US subsidiary SK Life Science. He also held the post of internal audit vice president at the SK SUPEX Pursuit Council, overseeing global legal, compliance, audit, and public relations functions. Earlier in his career, as legal director of Johnson & Johnson Medtech North Asia, he led complex regulatory and enforcement matters involving the Korea Fair Trade Commission and the Korea Customs Service, while managing litigation, corporate governance and cross-border advisory work across regional affiliates.

He began his legal career with LG Electronics and GS Caltex, where he handled major cases in fair-trade compliance, trade-secret protection, data privacy, and employee-invention compensation. His deep understanding of corporate operations and regulatory frameworks enables him to advise clients on the full spectrum of compliance and governance issues in the medtech and bio sector.

Beyond his corporate roles, he has long contributed to Korea’s healthcare industry policy and ethics initiatives. He has served as vice chair of the Ethics Committee of the Korea Medical Device Industry Association for nearly 10 years. He also served as an expert member of the Central Pharmaceutical Affairs Council, and as an adviser to the Ministry of Health and Welfare. In recognition of his contributions, he received the Minister of Health and Welfare Award (2017) and the Minister of Food and Drug Safety Award (2021).