The Globes business weekly has announced its Globes 100, its list of top Israeli companies for the year 2009 and Teva Pharmaceuticals, the world's leading generic pharmaceutical company, is #1.
In second place on the list of the most successful Israeli companies is Delek Energy, because of its Tamar and Dalit oil discoveries and drillings. Number three is Israel Chemicals (ICL), which transforms Dead Sea and Negev minerals into 4,000 applications used by companies on five continents to improve their agricultural and industrial fertilizer products.
Teva was founded in Jerusalem in 1901 as a small wholesale drug business that distributed imported medicines loaded onto camels and donkeys to customers throughout the land. It is now Israel’s largest company, traded on the NASDAQ at a worth of $40.2 billion. Teva employs nearly 40,000 people around the world, and managed, despite the international credit crunch, to acquired the New Jersey-based Barr pharmaceutical company for nearly $9 billion in cash and stocks last year. This was the largest purchase of a foreign company by an Israeli firm.
Copaxone for MS
Teva’s flagship product is Copaxone, a unique immuno-modulator therapy used for the treatment of Relapsing-Remitting Multiple Sclerosis. The first innovative drug to be developed in Israel and to receive FDA approval, Copaxone was originally discovered by Professor Sela, Professor Arnon and Dr. Teitelbaum at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot. Teva was granted world-wide exclusive license for Copaxone and became the developer of the product.
Eyal Deshe, who has been Deputy Finance Director of Teva for the past year, told Globes, “People like Teva because they like to connect to a dream. I, in a certain sense, am living the dream.” His predecessor, Dan Ziskind, served as Teva’s chief financial officer for nearly 30 years.
Teva manufactures innovative drugs in niche markets where it has a relative advantage in research and development, and also manufactures generic drugs (copies of known drugs after the original patents have expired) of all types.
Shlomo Yannai, who has been the CEO for the past two years, says that every 1% of growth in the generic drug market in the U.S. saves Americans $7 billion each year – indicating further expected growth in light of the financial hardships Americans are continuing to face.
Teva completed the first quarter of 2009 with sales of $3.1 billion and profits of $634 million, Globes reports. It has grown by 859% over the past decade.
Also on the Globes 100 top ten are Elbit Systems, Checkpoint, and Isramco.