Gedeon Richter

Gedeon Richter (Hungarian: Richter Gedeon Nyrt.) is a Hungarian multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company headquartered in Budapest, Hungary. It is one of the largest companies of the industry in the Central and Eastern European region and has operations in over 40 countries.

The company sells products for gynecology, the central nervous system, and cardiology areas among other therapeutic areas. The company was established in Budapest by Gedeon Richter, a pharmacist, in 1901. The establishment of his firm marked the beginning of the development of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry.

Gedeon Richter has a primary listing on the Budapest Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the BUX Index. It had a market capitalisation of approximately $4 billion as of November 2015, the third largest of any company with a primary listing on the Budapest Stock Exchange. It has secondary listings on Euronext.

History

Initially, small-scale pharmaceutical production took place in the "Arany Sas" (Golden Eagle) Pharmacy, which still operates today. Independent pharmaceutical research and production activities were launched in Hungary in those days. However, pharmaceutical production at an industrial scale necessitated heavy investments, and large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturing activities were considered to be extremely capital-intensive operations, even by the established standards in Western countries. Initially, the laboratory that operated on the premises of the pharmacy processed extracts from organs of animals and produced organotherapeutic drugs.