Nycomed

Nycomed is a European pharmaceutical company. Nycomed is privately owned primarily by the two private equity investors Nordic Capital and CSFB Alternative Capital. Production is located in Norway, Denmark, Poland, Finland, Austria, Belgium, Germany, Ireland, India, the United States and Estonia. Head office is located in Zürich, Switzerland. Total revenue was € 3,400 million (2006) and the group had 12,000 employees.

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History

The company was started in Norway in 1874, as an agent of foreign pharmaceutical products. The founder was pharmacist M.Nyegaard. The company name was Nyegaard & Co. from 1890 until 1986 when it was changed to Nycomed. In 1913 it started producing generic drugs, among these Globoid (copy of Aspirin). In 1969, the revolutionary radiocontrast agent Amipaque was discovered, starting a long process of internationalisation. The next generation product Omnipaque made the company highly successful. In 1986, Nycomed was purchased by the power company Hafslund. In 1994, the diagnostic division of US based Sterling Winthrop was acquired. Then, in 1996, the therapeutics division Nycomed Pharma was demerged whilst the diagnostic division Nycomed Imaging was merged with the British company Amersham plc. In 1999, the therapeutics company was established under the name Nycomed as an independent company. In 2007, Nycomed took over the much larger German pharmaceutical company, Altana Pharma. This acquisition made Nycomed one of the world's 25 largest pharmaceutical companies.

Since then it has pursued a strategy of licensing new medicines from research companies and introducing them to Europe. The company provides specialist/hospital products (e.g. Tachosil) throughout Europe. General Practitioner and pharmacy medicines are also provided but in selected countries. Today the company is active throughout Europe and continues to expand into new markets.