Great article a few weeks ago from Natasha Singer of the New York Times about how TEVA (meaning “nature”), a one time small Israeli pharma start-up, is taking the generic meds market by storm.
Highlights from the article:
- TEVA’s aiming for $31B in sales by 2015.
- between 1999 and 2010, profits shot up from $135M to $2B.
- their adjacent warehouse has radio signals embedded into the factory floor which guide forklifts between the tall shelves, since aisles are too narrow for human navigation.
- TEVA executives shun extravagance or artifice.
- costs are all rigorously evaluated against how they contribute to the bottom line. If they don’t make significant improvements to TEVA’s profit position, they’re axed.
- the company is the US generic drugs leader, with a shippable production of over 60 billion pills per year.
And China fans, here’s the paragraph (emphasis mine) relating to our purposes:
“…the company['s]…commitment to quality remains such that, unlike some of its competitors, it isn’t moving operations to India or China in pursuit of cheaper manufacturing. (Teva’s manufacturing centers are primarily in Israel, the United States and Europe.)”
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