Alvogen

Alvogen is a young Icelandic generic pharmaceutical company, whose CEO believes that his global strategy will give them an edge in this competitive industry.
Robert Wessman, Alvogen’s CEO, was also previously the CEO of Actavis, another Icelandic generics company, which he built from 90 people in 1999 to 11,000 people and €1.6 billion in revenues by 2007. Wessman has supreme confidence in his abilities to succeed, and a knack for convincing other people of the same and bringing them onboard his ventures. In 2009, after losing most of his net worth in the 2008 financial crisis, he used his last $2 million to found Alvogen, which he hoped to build into one of the top 5 generics companies in the world.
Despite going up against the big players in the generics industry (where 50% of world sales is controlled by just 10 firms), Wessman believes that his plan for Alvogen, involving difficult-to-make drugs, biosimilar drugs, and strategies targeted to individual markets, will enable them to be competitive. He quickly recruited a team, with little more than a business plan written on a napkin, and began operations in 35 countries almost simultaneously. The company grew quickly, despite some close calls with funding, and by 2014 it has almost $650 million in sales.
Currently, Wessman, top management, and some of Alvogen’s investors are entertaining offers from two different groups. One option is to merge Alvogen into SuperPharm, a large, publicly-traded U.S. pharmaceutical company. The other is to be acquired by CVC, a U.K. private equity firm, and Temasek, a Singapore investment company, who are offering to buy out all Alvogen’s shareholders. Or, Wessman and his team can reject both offers and continue on as an independent company.