Even during difficult times, like during the Japanese colonial rule, Kochon founded Gungbon Pharmacy in 1941, which became the basis for Chong Kun Dang, to protect the nobility of human life. From the 1960s to the 1970s, Kochon established Korea’s largest raw material compound and fermentation factory, and changed the course of Korea’s pharmaceuticals industry by enabling the home production of pharmaceuticsraw materials, which were all imported from overseas at the time.

In 1968, Chong Kun Dang was the first in Korea to receive an FDA approval and exported the antibiotic ‘Chloramphenicol’ to overseas countries and created the basis for Korean pharmaceutics export. Chong Kun Dang was also Korea’s first to build its own central laboratory, and by completing the construction of its fermentation factory, created a basis for Korea’s pharmaceuticals industry.

Kochon was also an entrepreneur who cared for the society. In 1973 he founded the CKD Kochon Foundation at his own expense, and provided tuition fees for the children of every executive and staff member from middle school to university. Starting from 1980, he gave scholarships to students that were not children of the employees. Kochon strived for a society where more and more people could be happy, and put giving back corporate property back to the society as his main priority. For Kochon, a company was a tool for making a more beautiful society.

Chong Kun Dang was at the forefront of tuberculosis elimination by creating the antituberculou drug ‘Rifampicin’, and starting from 2006 the Kochon Foundation and the WHO affiliated Stop TB partnership established the Kochon Prize that gives 100 thousand dollars each year to the person or group that has contributed to tuberculosis elimination from all around the world. Kochon Chong-Kun Lee not only led the Korean pharmaceuticals industry into modernization, but he is an entrepreneur who always cared for society, and through his business philosophy of honesty and trust, and pharmaceutics, he contributed in creating better lives for people.