LG NOVA officially expands into West Virginia

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (WBOY) — LG NOVA gave the community a glimpse into its new Morgantown offices Monday evening at an event that Head of LG NOVA Sokwoo Rhee said marks “the real official launch of LG NOVA’s operation in West Virginia and Morgantown.”

Rhee told Nexstar’s WBOY that LG NOVA has been preparing for this event for the past eight months, following an announcement this past January that the company would be partnering with West Virginia. He said that things took a while as a result of ironing out agreements and other legal items, but now that they’re established in West Virginia, they’ve already begun the process of creating new businesses.

“So LG NOVA creates companies and creates new businesses,” said Rhee. “And we spin it out as a separate company with its own mission—largely aligned with LG NOVA’s mission.”

The organization’s first spin-off company is called Primefocus Health, a digital health venture made possible through a partnership with Marshall Health Networks. Rhee said that Primefocus uses remote technologies to monitor and treat patients who would otherwise not be able to come into a hospital often or at all.

Rhee said that through Monday evening’s event, he would like the community to have a better understanding of what LG is, and what they’re trying to accomplish in West Virginia.

“We are not building a factory per se,” Rhee said. “We are building a new business flywheel—or new innovative flywheel that is gonna create additional new businesses in [the] next 10 to 20 years in West Virginia.”

Through new partnerships, Rhee said that LG NOVA is hoping to work with local start-ups and help establish start-up solutions so that they can provide a bigger business offering. “This is really a partnership to create additional business and grow the ecosystem exponentially,” he added.

According to Rhee, this event was different from a traditional groundbreaking, and he wants people to view the new LG offices as more than your typical corporate structures. “This is gonna be a big launch of a long journey,” he stated.

Rhee said that he uses the words “long journey” because the progress is not particularly linear throughout this process. “We catalyze at this innovation and we’re gonna work very closely with the universities and the government and all that, and at some point, we’d like to grow exponentially with a local start-up ecosystem. More jobs and more businesses here in West Virginia.”

Rhee told Nexstar’s WBOY that the reason why LG chose West Virginia as the company’s next location to expand is because he was really impressed by the state’s participation in making the partnership work. “The eagerness, the energy, and willingness to work with corporations like LG to create their local economy a flywheel of innovation,” he added.

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