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This video accompanies an update about JMC’s activities during the COVID-19 outbreak. Our key message is that throughout this global pandemic, JMC has remained open for business and has continued to manufacture and distribute our products. Korea and JMC are at work.

We sincerely hope that all our customers will overcome the current difficulties as soon as possible and that all your co-workers and families are healthy. The current global uncertainty is challenging but we feel confident that that we can get through this together.

COVID-19 Letter, March 2020

The start of 2020 was celebrated by JMC and the KISCO Group in Ulsan and Incheon on January 2 and 3.

On Friday the second of January about 460 employees from the KISCO Group gathered at the Seo-gu Cultural Center in Incheon to celebrate the start of a new year.

As part of the ceremony the KISCO Awards were presented to employees and departments that contributed most to the development of the KISCO Group last year. A total of 12 teams, individuals and organizations, were awarded in three categories: KISCO Group Management Award, Technology Award and Contribution Award. In addition, this year, a special award was established to congratulate Merit F & C, an excellent partner that maintained a strategic relationship with KISCO.

Staff then watched a video showing KISCO and DKC employees working at the soon-to-be completed Iksan factory. Chairman Heung-jun Kim’s said, “In the coming year, KISCO will celebrate its 50th anniversary. I don’t think it’s impossible for KISCO, which has a long history and great talent, to enter the 500 largest domestic companies that make up 1 trillion won in sales. Large growth cannot be achieved only by the initiatives of the company. I want each employee to help us become a company that communicates and consults with employees, a company where everyone can demonstrate their skills. ” The ceremony was ended with a performance by a band.

On the following day, at the JMC Ulsan factory, the JMC staff gathered in the auditorium on the 2nd floor of the main building. They were joined by the chairman, president and CEO. Together they watched the video of the KISCO Group together and the chairman gave a presentation to staff.

Happy New Year.

The 1st “Tiger Hill” Saccharin Kimjang Contest was held in December. Kimjang refers to the process of making kimchi, Korea’s world famous, fermented vegetable dish. The Saccharin Kimjang Contest was held to select ‘Delicious Kimchi made using Saccharin’ among the families of staff from the KISCO Group. From the 9th to the 13th of December, Kimchi was submitted. A total of 133 people from the entire KISCO Group family participated and 163 Kimchi dishes were submitted.

The screening was conducted over two days on December 16th and 17th. The 163 kimchi submitted to the fair for judging were each transferred to a numbered batch container and placed so that the submitter’s affiliation and information were unknown. Three outside judges, including the honourable chairman, attended the examination, and a total of four judges evaluated all 163 kimchi over approximately two hours. In this preliminary round, the top 12 kimchi were selected by summing the individual scores of the four judges.

Subsequently, the finals were held on the 17th, the next day. The honourable chairman, chairman, president, JMC CEO Won-sik Jung and one external judge attended the final. The screening was conducted through a blind test as in the preliminary round. A total of three kimchi were selected as winners. Afterwards, the kimchi was donated to the Saenam Church Happy Center located in Seoknam 2-dong, Seo-gu, Incheon, and was used to provide free meals.

The award ceremony for the Kimjang competition was scheduled to take place on December 18, but was delayed until February 12. Three award winners, the honourable chairman, president, president, and JMC CEO attended the award ceremony. The Gold, Silver and Bronze prize winners were awarded 3,000,000 won, 2,000,000 won and 1,000,000 respectively. Afterwards, a tea function was held with the management and the winners. The award ceremony concluded after celebrating the excellence of Saccharin used to make Kimchi.

The 1st Tiger Hill Saccharin Kimjang Contest received positive reviews that it was an opportunity to remind many employees of the benefits of saccharin. Through this direct experience in real life, we hope to grasp and spread the word about the excellence of JMC’s high-quality saccharin, which is attracting attention in the world, so that it can be used more widely and in various ways.

Food Ingredients Europe 2019 (FIE) 2019 was held from December 3rd (Tuesday)-5th (Thursday) in Paris at the Parc des Expositions de Paris-Nord Villepinte. FIE is one of Europe’s leading food additive related industry exhibitions, and has been held every two years since its inception in 1986. FIE, which boasts a cumulative audience of over 500,000, has become a major exhibition in the F & B industry, has been around for 30 years and is regarded as an important exhibition that must be attended by industry-related people.

JMC, who participated in FIE for the second time since its first participation in 2017, held a meeting with about 61 companies to explore and pioneer new and potential markets for Saccharin and focused on attracting new customers. By establishing a place for direct contact with European customers, we confirmed the possibility of trading through active contact with potential customers. In particular, JMC’s high-quality saccharin was emphasized by discussing concerns about the quality problem (impurity) of Chinese saccharin. We also discussed the recently announced revising of USP regulations for saccharin analysis.

JMC will continue to exhibit and promote JMC’s World’s Highest Quality Saccharin to customers around the world.

The IDTechEx USA Show was held at the Santa Clara Convention Center in San Francisco, USA on the 20th to 21st of November. The ‘IDTechEx Show!’ is a large-scale technical conference and exhibition on 3D printing, electric vehicles, Internet of things, sensors and wearables, graphene, and 2D materials. It is an exhibition where each participant company discloses their latest technology, publishes its products and can directly communicate with both suppliers and end users.

Having exhibited in 2019, JMC again organized a booth, participating in the ‘Graphene & 2D Materials’ section. Our focus was to introduce our newly developed competency in graphene oxide manufacturing to industry stakeholders. From the KISCO group, several employees, including Vice President Sang-ho Lee, participated in this event and helped introduce JMC and KISCO.

A presentation by Professor Joo from Cornell University, a collaborator of JMC’s, introduced several new aspects our graphene oxide technology.

Participation in the event demonstrated JMC’s capability as a graphene oxide manufacturer and gave us an insight into global market trends.
2019년 첫 참관에 이어 작년, 올해 지속적으로 부스를 구성한 JMC는 신규 개발한 산화 그래핀 제조 기술에 대한 당사의 역량을 많은 업계 관계자들에게 소개하기 위해 ‘Graphene & 2D Materials’ 섹션에 참가 하였습니다. 경인양행에서도 이상호 부사장님을 비롯하여 여럿 직원들이 함께 참가하여 JMC 및 KISCO 브랜드 소개에 힘을 기울였습니다.

JMC의 연구 역량을 집대성하여 탄생시킨 고품질 산화그래핀의 합성에서부터 대량생산에 이르기 까지의 제조 기술 등을 소개하며 유관 업체 및 잠재고객들에게 JMC 브랜드를 알렸습니다. 산화그래핀 및 환원그래핀산화물 시장에 자사의 기술력과 대량 생산 공정을 어필하며 JMC 브랜드를 각인 시켰으며, 코넬대학교의 주용락 교수의 세션 발표에 JMC를 소개하며 다시 한번 홍보효과를 누릴 수 있었습니다.

이번 참가로 인해 산화그래핀 메이커로서의 JMC에 대한 긍정적인 평가를 확인할 수 있었으며 시장 동향 파악에 좋은 기회가 되었습니다. 앞으로도 지속적인 개발 및 생산을 통해 글로벌 탄소 소재 기업으로도 그 영역을 확장해 가는 JMC의 도전에 박수를 보냅니다.

CPhI, the World’s Largest International Pharmaceutical Ingredient Expo CPhI (Convention on Pharmaceutical Ingredients & Intermediates) Worldwide 2019 was held in Frankfurt, Germany from  November 5 (Tue) ~ 7 (Thu).

KISCO and JMC have now exhibited at CPhI for the past few years and have seen a strong acknowledgement of our growing reputation as a high quality manufacturer of saccharin and as a CRO partner.

This year we experienced an increase of over 40% in the number of new conversations at CPhI. Through meetings with various companies were able to get valuable information on market trends and activities of competitors / similar industries and to also form networks with related companies and potential customers.

We saw particularly strong enquiries about flow chemistry using our Flow Reactor from new customers who visited our booth. This included interest in substances produced using flow chemistry as well as detailed discussions on fine chemicals in general.

Customers meeting with JMC expressed strong interest in our high-quality saccharin due to concerns with quality issues related to impurities, etc. of saccharin made in China, a constant problem in the market. We held a large number of meetings with potential customers who are currently using competitors’ products.

We hope that by continuously participating in overseas exhibitions, the reputation of JMC and KISCO’s technological expertise and brand status in the industry will continue to develop.

The US Pharmacopeia Council of Experts Annual report has highlighted their work on updating the regulatory standards for saccharin.

Catherine M. Sheehan, M.S., M.S. Senior Director, Science –Excipients, USP, comments (page 15) that:

Most people don’t think much about excipients, which are considered the ‘inactive’ ingredients in medicine. But these are actually critically important to how well a drug works in the body, as well as how it tastes if it’s oral medication. And they can cause great harm to patients if their quality is poor, so we are very proud of the work we do to help ensure the quality of excipients. We published draft standards seeking comments from international stakeholders revising the standards for three types of saccharin. Today, saccharin is used to help make medicines—which would otherwise taste pretty bad—palatable for patients. It is also used as an excipient for medications delivered intravenously or by aerosol, which means it’s critical to control impurities. This work is important because we know that saccharin may contain about 10 impurities that can develop during some manufacturing processes, including a few that can be harmful. This is part of our work with the Pharmacopeial Discussion Group, which includes USP, the European Pharmacopoeia, and the Japanese Pharmacopoeia, to harmonize excipient monographs and general test methods in order to align standards to bring more efficiency in quality testing.

The full report can be downloaded here.

The completion ceremony of BCMB’s new factory and commemoration of the 66th anniversary of JMC’s founding were held at the headquarters of JMC, located in Ulsan, on Friday July 7.

The expansion the build the new BCMB plant, which started in May 18, was completed in June 19. The new factory has a total capacity of 2100 tons. The total land area is 545m² and will have an annual production of 720 tons. BCMB is a new material with excellent merit as a semiconductor encapsulation material. JMC has been producing high quality products with its long-established technology and stable and environmentally friendly production facilities. BCMC is now a major product, accounting for about 15% of JMC’s overall sales as of last year. With the completion of the new plant, we anticipate a 1.5x increase in sales and a 1.5x increase in sales in the future. This will serve as the foundation for exploring new markets such as the fluorescent brightener market outside the electronic materials market.

In order to celebrate the completion of the new BCMB plant, we held the ceremony for completion at the new factory in the sunny weather, with Chairman Mr. Kim Heung-Joon, CEO Dr. Cho Sung-Yong and Vice President Dr. Lee Sang-Ho. After a congratulatory message from Chairman Kim Heung-joon the plaque to commemorate the completion of the project was unveiled. This was followed by a tape-cutting ceremony and a tour of the new facility.

To commemorate the 66th anniversary of the founding of the company, awards were presented to 22 long-term employees. Chairman Kim Heung-joon expressed his gratitude to the employees and finished the commemoration with the words that JMC, as indicated by the opening ceremony of the new plant, is looking forward to further development in the future.

Chemspec Europe 2019, an international exhibition for fine chemicals and specialty chemicals, was held in Basel, Switzerland on June 26 and 27.

The 34th Chemspec exhibition was the largest ever, with more than 370 exhibitors from 27 countries around the world, covering an area of ​​6,300 square meters. KISCO and JMC were participating for the fourth time since 2016. In this exhibition, various companies promoted technologies related to flow reactora, fluorine chemistry and Green Chemistry, which are major issues in the fine chemical industry. Various companies from across the industry value chain, including manufacturers, distributors, regulators and equipment suppliers shared the latest trends and technologies. Through this, our staff gained a clear understanding of many issues, including environmental regulation issues, one of the areas of greatest concern within the market.

Many of our customers visited our booth, attracted by our accessible booths and LCD banners. Many of our employees, including CEO Dr. Cho, attended the meetings with these customers to discuss business and market trends. We specifically focused on network formation and introduced our custom manufacturing capabilities to many potential partners.

Through this exhibition we were able to consult with companies that we believe will be able to cooperate with us and with whom we aim to attract projects from. In order to improve the competitiveness of the custom manufacturing business, we will work closely with other departments to diversify our product lines and establish concrete business goals. We look forward to hearing about many achievements in the future from KISCO / JMC’s custom manufacturing business!