{"id":812961,"date":"2025-02-21T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-21T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=812961"},"modified":"2025-02-21T06:50:04","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T04:50:04","slug":"the-man-who-built-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-pharmaceutical-companies-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/812961\/the-man-who-built-one-of-the-worlds-biggest-pharmaceutical-companies-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"The man who built one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical companies in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Stephen Saad is the CEO of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical business, Aspen Pharmacare. The company has grown into a R75 billion behemoth with operations in over 150 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saad was raised in Durban and completed a bachelor of commerce degree at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He went on to qualify as a Chartered Accountant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite making his name in the pharmaceutical business, Sadd started his career at Coopers & Lybrand, where he completed his articles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He would later move to Quickmed, a prescription drug distribution company, where he worked as a rep in South Africa’s townships. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was instrumental in convincing Quickmed to avoid a sale, stating that intellectual property ownership would be the best way to save and grow the business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He became a 50% shareholder and identified Covan, an eye-drop company, as an acquisition target. The two companies would go on to form Zurich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Adcock Ingram, then known as Prempharm, saw Zurick as a threat and acquired it for R75 million, which pocketed Saad R20 million when he sold his shares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before re-entering the pharmaceutical game, Saad, who was a millionaire before he turned 30, participated in a takeover of Varsity College, which was bought for R1.5 million.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The private “university” was poorly run and faced closure within six months. Saad and his business partner Gus Attridge dismissed the founder and restructured the overhead base. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group would then sell Varsity College for R100 million later. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stephen Saad founded South Africa’s largest pharmaceuticals maker, Aspen Pharmacare, in 1997.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspen<\/strong> and other successes<\/h2>\n\n\n
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Saad founded Aspen in 1997, focusing on buying licences for non-core brands from large multinationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With larger players happy to offload their non-essential assets, Aspen recorded R105 million in revenue in its first year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspen would also start acquiring intellectual property like patents and trademarks while avoiding the high manufacturing costs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this would change through the highly leveraged R2.4 billion takeover of South Africa\u2019s oldest pharmaceutical company, South African Druggist, which was involved in pharmaceutical development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By 2003, Aspen launched the first generic ARC in Africa. Aspen remained an essential player in fighting HIV across South Africa, signing several large contracts with the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspen continued its acquisition spree, acquiring Cape Town-based Fine Chemicals in 2004. Fine Chemicals was South Africa’s only manufacturer of active pharmaceutical ingredients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aspen also expanded internationally, acquiring Royal Numico, a Dutch-based infant nutritional brand, in 2004. It then expanded to Latin America via several acquisitions in Brazil, Mexico, and Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2011, Aspen acquired the largest Australian-owned pharmaceutical business, Sigma Pharmaceuticals, for R5.9 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three years later, Aspen entered into a R12 billion agreement with GSK to acquire the Arixtra and Fraxiparine\/Fraxodi thrombolytic brands worldwide and a sterile production site in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group would also acquire the exclusive rights to commercialise AstraZeneca’s global anaesthetics portfolio in 100 countries worldwide, excluding the USA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Aspen also announced that it entered into a licensing agreement with Johnson & Johnson to produce its vaccine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company’s growth over the last two decades has seen it market generic medicines in 150 countries, with Saad benefitting handsomely. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With a 12.82% stake, Saad’s share of Apsen is worth roughly R930 billion. His net worth has dropped substantially in recent years, declining from the $2.1 billion <\/a>(R24 billion) figure in 2015 from Forbes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This follows disappointing financial results for the group, especially in the most recent financial year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the group’s revenue increased by 10% to just under R45 billion, net income decreased by 16% to R4.40 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) also increased from R11.77 to R9.91.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the recent drop in the value of his stake in Aspen, he has still earned large amounts from historic dividends. He also owns a large private game reserve at Sabi Sands next to the Kruger National Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saad is the chair of The Sharks rugby team from Durban and serves as a board trustee to his alma mater Durban High School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amidst his business successes, Saad received an honorary doctorate from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apsen’s success led to Saad being named Entrepreneur of the Year at the All Africa Business Leaders Awards in 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephen Saad is the CEO of South Africa’s largest pharmaceutical business, Aspen Pharmacare, which has grown into a R75 billion behemoth with operations in over 150 countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":812971,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[13435,21790,21789,7773],"class_list":["post-812961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-aspen","tag-exeter","tag-saad","tag-zurich"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=812961"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":813520,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/812961\/revisions\/813520"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/812971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=812961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=812961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=812961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}