Samih Darwazah ( ar, سميح دروزة, 1930 – 15 May 2015) was the founder of

Hikma Pharmaceuticals Hikma Pharmaceuticals plc is a British multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in London, UK that manufactures non-branded generic and in-licensed pharmaceutical products. It was founded by Samih Darwazah in Amman, Jordan in 197 ...

, Jordan's largest pharmaceutical business, the Jordanian Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources from 1995 to 1996, and later a senator in the Jordanian parliament.

Early life

Samih Darwazah was born in

Nablus Nablus ( ; ar, نابلس, Nābulus ; he, שכם, Šəḵem, ISO 259-3: ; Samaritan Hebrew: , romanized: ; el, Νεάπολις, Νeápolis) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank, located approximately north of Jerusalem, with a populati ...

, the son of a tea merchant father. At the age of 10, he became the youngest child to attend the Arab College of Jerusalem. He studied for a master's degree at the

American University of Beirut The American University of Beirut (AUB) ( ar, الجامعة الأميركية في بيروت) is a private, non-sectarian, and independent university chartered in New York with its campus in Beirut, Lebanon. AUB is governed by a private, aut ...

, Darwazah received a master's degree from the

St. Louis College of Pharmacy The University of Health Sciences and Pharmacy in St. Louis is a private university focused on the health sciences that is located in St. Louis, Missouri. It was founded in 1864 as the St. Louis College of Pharmacy. The university includes St. ...

Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...

which he attended on a

Fulbright scholarship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

. In 2010 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the college.

Career

Darwazeh worked for Eli Lilly from 1964 to 1976, before establishing

in 1978. Between 1995 and 1996 he served as Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources to the Government of Jordan. He also founded the ''Jordan Trade Association'' and was a member of the Advisory Economic Council to the King of Jordan. In 2007, Darwazah was named the Ernst & Young Middle East Entrepreneur of the Year. He was named chairman of Capital Bank in Jordan in 2009. He founded Hikma in 1978 in Amman, Jordan. With the help of his children who joined the business in its early days, Hikma grew from a small factory in Jordan into the largest regional supplier of pharmaceuticals in the Middle East and North Africa region. The company also expanded outside the MENA region, establishing operations in Europe and the US, and was the first Arab company to export pharmaceutical products to the U.S. in 1996. Today Hikma operates in around 50 countries, selling a broad range of branded generics, generic injectables, non-injectable generics and in-licensed patented products. In 2005, the company floated on the London Stock Exchange and in March 2015 it entered the

FTSE 100 The Financial Times Stock Exchange 100 Index, also called the FTSE 100 Index, FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the "Footsie" , is a share index of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with (in principle) the highest market ...

index.

Publications

In 2004, Darwazah published his business memoir, ''Building a Global Success''.

Personal life

He was married to Samira Fadli and they had four children, sons Said and Mazen, and daughters May and Hana, all of whom survived him. His son, Said Darwazah, succeeded him as CEO in 2007. The Dawraz family founded the Samih Darwaz Center for Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship at the Suliman S. Olayan School of Business at American University of Beirut in 2011.

References

External links

Prime Ministry of Jordan website

Hikma.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Darwazah, Samih Businesspeople in the pharmaceutical industry Palestinian businesspeople Jordanian businesspeople 2015 deaths 1930 births American University of Beirut alumni Saint Louis University alumni Government ministers of Jordan Energy ministers of Jordan Members of the Senate of Jordan