Medytox hires ex-US attorney in botox fight against Daewoong
Former acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Joon Kim will lead Medytox’s legal battle against Daewoong Pharmaceutical over a botulinum toxin (BTX) strain in the U.S., Medytox said Tuesday.
Kim served as the acting chief federal law enforcement officer in the district, encompassing eight New York counties, from 2017 to 2018, and now is a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP.
Kim joined the attorney’s office in 2000 as an assistant U.S. attorney, and worked at the law firm from 2006 to 2013.
He rejoined the office as chief counsel to the U.S. attorney in 2013 and was promoted to Deputy U.S. attorney in July 2015. He replaced his predecessor Preet Bharara in March 2017 and returned to the law firm after serving his 300-day tenure.
Kim’s practice focuses on white-collar criminal defense, internal corporate investigations and commercial litigations such as the theft of trade secrets, and economic espionage.
Cleary Gottlieb is counseling Medytox in the BTX maker’s U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) litigation that Daewoong stole Medytox’s BTX strain.
Medytox and Daewoong have been locked in the dispute since 2016 as Medytox claims Daewoong has stolen its BTX strain and used it for Daewoong Nabota. Daewoong claims it found the strain in a barn in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province. Starting from a 2016 police complaint, Medytox filed a compensation suit with the Orange County Court in southern California in July 2017. But the U.S. court stayed the case and Medytox filed a separate suit with the Seoul Central District Court three months later.
Medytox filed the suit with the USITC in January this year, and the commission has been collecting each firm’s BTX data since then.
The battle between the companies is taking place in the U.S. because the country is the largest BTX market in the world, accounting for nearly 50 percent of the 4.5 trillion-won ($3.8 billion) global market.
Daewoong won U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval on Nabota in February and launched it in the U.S. market in May.
Medytox is yet to make an entrance into the market.