Eli Hurvitz

Hurvitz was born in Jerusalem in 1932 to parents who had immigrated to the country in the 1920s.[4] His father had spent two years working in Austrian coal mines to finance the family’s immigration and subsequently worked as a plasterer and in swamp drainage.[4] The family moved from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv in 1934, when Hurvitz was a young child.[1]

His high-school education was interrupted by military service during Israel’s War of Independence.[4] In May 1948, he and his classmates were recruited into the army of the newly founded State of Israel.[1] They returned to their studies for five months in early 1949 to complete their matriculation examinations.[1] Hurvitz saw combat during the war and later completed a reserve officers’ course, eventually reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel.[4]

After graduating from high school, Hurvitz joined the border kibbutz Tel Katzir in November 1949.[1] As a member of a Nahal unit, he helped establish the kibbutz in the Jordan Valley and remained there for several years.[4] At Tel Katzir he met Dalia Solomon, whom he married in June 1953.[1] The couple left the kibbutz in October of that year.[1]

Dalia’s family had longstanding connections to the pharmaceutical business that Hurvitz subsequently entered.[4] Her father was a managing partner in Assia Chemical Labs, and she was the granddaughter of Chaim Salomon, one of the founders of a Jerusalem pharmacy established in 1901.[1][4] That pharmacy formed part of the business lineage leading to Assia.[4]

Hurvitz joined Assia in 1953 while pursuing his undergraduate education in economics.[4] His first work involved washing laboratory equipment rather than managing the company.[1] He completed a bachelor’s degree in economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1957, then moved into office work and subsequently into executive positions at Assia.[1][4] His advancement eventually brought him to the position of chief executive of the company.[4]

Assia’s merger with Zori in 1964 and its acquisition of a controlling interest in Teva in 1969 established the corporate foundations of Hurvitz’s subsequent pharmaceutical career.[1] In 1976, the three companies merged as Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd., with combined sales reported at US$28 million.[1] Hurvitz became chief executive of the combined company, beginning a period of leadership generally dated from 1976 to 2002.[1] He then retired from the chief executive position and became chairman of its board.[1]

The businesses brought together in Teva had roots extending well before the creation of the combined company.[5] One parent company had distributed medicines in Ottoman Palestine in 1901, transporting them by mules and camels.[5] Several pharmaceutical companies developed during the 1930s and became the sole sources of medicines in Palestine during World War II.[5] The 1976 combination thus brought together established local pharmaceutical enterprises rather than creating a business without predecessors.[1][5]

Hurvitz’s initial strategy was to establish Teva as a leader within Israel before expanding beyond the domestic market.[1] Acquisitions included Ikepharm, which possessed a plant approved by the United States Food and Drug Administration, and Plantex in 1980.[1] Teva acquired Migada, a manufacturer of disposable medical equipment, in 1984, followed by the drug manufacturer Abic in September 1988.[1] These purchases extended the company’s activities across medicines, pharmaceutical production, and medical equipment.[1]

By 1985, Teva’s sales revenues had reached US$88 million, but the limited size of Israel’s market constrained further expansion.[1] Hurvitz consequently pursued entry into foreign markets alongside continued development of the Israeli business.[1] In 1985, he and W. R. Grace acquired Lemmon, a small generic-drug company, as a route into the emerging American generics market.[1] W. R. Grace sold its shares in Lemmon to Teva in 1990.[1]

Teva’s subsequent expansion in Europe and North America combined internal development with mergers and acquisitions, with annual sales growth reported at more than 20 percent.[1] Its international development included entry into the European market in 1992 and the acquisition of chemical plants in Italy and Germany.[6] The company expanded production, employment, and sales while establishing dozens of plants in Israel and abroad.[6] Through this expansion, it became a major producer of generic medicines and ultimately the world’s largest manufacturer of generic pharmaceuticals.[5][6]

The scale of growth was reflected in sales of US$2.519 billion in 2002 and US$8.408 billion in 2006.[1] The latter figure included reported North American sales of US$7.721 billion.[1] Teva developed subsidiaries in more than fifty countries, becoming an internationally integrated pharmaceutical company while retaining its Israeli identity.[1] Across the broader period of Hurvitz’s management, it acquired, took over, or merged with more than forty companies.[2]

A 1998 profile already recorded annual sales exceeding US$1 billion and shares traded on Wall Street.[7] By that point, Teva had developed from a small local drug company into one of Israel’s leading companies.[7] Hurvitz’s business standing also brought him into contact with prime ministers seeking his advice, while his publicly expressed views did not always coincide with those of the Manufacturers Association.[7]

Teva raised US$18.4 million through an American Depositary Receipt sale on NASDAQ in 1987, and sales reached US$268.5 million in 1989.[8] From 1992 through 1996, acquisitions extended its reach into France, Italy, Great Britain, and Hungary.[8] U.S. sales surpassed domestic revenues in 1993, and overseas employment exceeded its Israeli workforce in 1996.[8]

Alongside generics, Hurvitz supported a major investment in the development of an original medicine for multiple sclerosis.[3] In 1980, he met immunologist Michael Sela, who described research conducted with Ruth Arnon and Deborah Teitelbaum on a molecule that might reduce attacks of the disease.[3] Continuing the clinical trials required tens of millions of dollars, with the requested investment described as approaching US$100 million.[3] The commitment was unusually large for Teva and exposed it to substantial risk if the lengthy clinical development failed.[3]

Hurvitz backed the project despite that risk, supporting the work that eventually produced Copaxone.[3] The treatment received FDA approval in 1996 and became Teva’s first original drug.[3] Its commercial performance substantially exceeded an initial forecast of approximately US$300 million in annual revenue.[3] Annual revenue passed US$1 billion from 2005 and reached US$4 billion in 2012.[3]

Over twenty years, Copaxone generated US$40 billion in revenue for Teva.[3] Its growth accompanied increased awareness and diagnosis of multiple sclerosis after the treatment became available.[3] The investment therefore added an original-drug development program to the generic-pharmaceutical business around which Teva had built much of its international expansion.[1][3]

Hurvitz’s involvement in promoting Israel’s economy extended beyond his own company before the 1976 merger.[9] A press release dated March 31, 1968, identified him as an Israeli co-chair of the First International Young Leadership Economic Conference at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot.[9] More than one hundred young business leaders from around the world participated in the gathering.[9] Participants committed themselves to closer economic relations with Israel and discussed initiatives concerning housing, tourism, and the sale of Israeli products abroad.[9]

At the conference, Hurvitz was identified with Assia Chemical Laboratories and named among those expected to head the Israeli committee coordinating proposed Volunteers for Israel Products groups.[9] This initiative connected his industrial work with efforts to organize overseas support for Israeli exports.[9] His later institutional responsibilities included the chairmanship of the Israel Export Institute from 1974 to 1978.[1][6]

From 1981 to 1986, he served as president of the Manufacturers Association of Israel and led the coordinating council of economic organizations.[6] In these capacities, he participated with the government and the Histadrut in formulating the economic stabilization plan during Israel’s mid-1980s inflation crisis.[6] His role included securing manufacturers’ participation in measures intended to address the crisis.[10] Industrialist Dan Proper credited him with persuading manufacturers to accept painful steps as part of that effort.[10]

The Jerusalem Post commentary interprets Hurvitz’s role in stabilization as part of Israel’s movement away from its socialist economic roots.[11] It credits him with negotiating with the Histadrut and Treasury and obtaining industrialists’ agreement to reduce duties protecting them against imports.[11] In the same account, unions accepted the ending of salary indexation and food subsidies, while political leaders cut defense spending and prohibited financing deficits by printing money.[11] These measures are presented in the commentary as interconnected elements of the broader economic change.[11]

Hurvitz became temporary chairman of Bank Leumi in 1986, during the bank’s recovery following the 1983 bank-share crisis and nationalization.[6] His chairmanship is generally dated to 1986–1987.[1] He subsequently chaired the Jerusalem Development Authority and served on the Bank of Israel’s Advisory Committee from 1991 to 1995.[1] These appointments placed him in banking, municipal development, and national economic advisory work alongside his continuing responsibilities at Teva.[1]

His institutional activities also extended to scientific research and democratic governance.[1] From 1989 to 1995, he chaired the executive committee of the Weizmann Institute of Science.[1] He became chair of the Israel Democracy Institute in 2002.[1] Other board positions included directorships at Koor Industries, Magal Security Systems, and Vishay Technologies.[12]

In 2006, after the Second Lebanon War, Hurvitz joined the Brodet Committee on defense budgeting.[6] Israeli leaders also sought him for more senior public positions, offering him posts including president of Israel, finance minister, and mayor of Jerusalem.[2] He declined those offers and remained with his work at Teva.[2] His public career consequently combined advisory and institutional responsibilities with continued leadership in private industry.[1][2]

Military service remained another element of his life beyond the pharmaceutical business.[4] In addition to his early combat service and later reserve rank, he commanded a unit on the Egyptian front during the Yom Kippur War.[10]

Hurvitz’s principal industrial legacy was the development of Teva into a leading Israel-based global pharmaceutical company, with an international network of subsidiaries and a continuing Israeli identity.[1] Its growth under his leadership combined the consolidation of domestic pharmaceutical businesses, entry into overseas generics markets, and repeated acquisitions.[1] His support for Copaxone added an original medicine developed through Israeli scientific research to that industrial record.[3]

The scale Teva had reached by the end of Hurvitz’s life illustrates the distance it had traveled from the combined sales of US$28 million reported at the 1976 merger.[1] At the time of his death, Teva’s employees worked in sixty countries.[10] Its market value later peaked near US$65 billion in summer 2015.[3]

Recognition of Hurvitz’s industrial contribution included the Industrialist Prize in 1976 and Israel’s Jubilee-year Industrialist of the Year award in 1998.[4] He received the Israel Prize in 2002 for his contribution to the country.[4] Academic honors included honorary doctorates from the Technion in 1990, the Weizmann Institute of Science in 1994, Ben-Gurion University in 2002, and Tel Aviv University in 2004.[1][4] These awards accompanied a career that included leadership both in pharmaceutical manufacturing and in national scientific and economic institutions.[1][4]

Hurvitz’s life also became the subject of a biography by Yossi Goldstein.[2] The work drew on tens of thousands of documents and interviews, including a 120-hour interview with Hurvitz himself.[2] Its coverage included the growth of Teva through more than forty corporate acquisitions, takeovers, or mergers and his decision to decline senior public posts.[2] The extensive interview material preserved his own account alongside the documentary record of his business and public activities.[2]

An institute bearing his name continued to appear in the institutional life of Tel Aviv University after his death.[13] A January 2014 conference program identified the Eli Hurvitz Institute of Strategic Management at the university and named Professor Asher Tishler, dean of its Faculty of Management, as the institute’s director.[13]

Hurvitz stepped down as Teva chairman in 2010 because of cancer, after approximately eight years in the post.[6][14] He died of cancer in November 2011, aged seventy-nine.[14] During the week before his death, he had been hospitalized in serious condition at Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer.[15] He was survived by Dalia, their three children—Vered, Dafna, and Chaim—and nine grandchildren.[4][15]

Hurvitz’s tenure at Bank Leumi ended amid controversy over the retirement arrangements granted to former chief executive Ernest Yaffet.[6] He allowed Yaffet to retire with substantial pension and compensation terms and subsequently resigned from the bank chairmanship.[6]

He was also prosecuted in the Promedico tax case.[10] An indictment filed in March 1996 alleged evasion of US$18 million in corporate taxes while he headed Teva’s Promedico subsidiary between 1980 and 1986.[8] The subsidiary had subsequently been divested, and Teva’s board signed Hurvitz to a further five-year contract in January 1997.[8] The Jerusalem District Court convicted him in 1998, but the Supreme Court acquitted him of all charges in 2000.[10]