Best-Known Hungarian Pharmacist Born 150 Years ago

It was 150 years ago, on September 23, 1872 that a well-known pioneer of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry, Gedeon Richter was born. Today, the Budapest-based company bearing his name is present in 50 countries of the world.

In 1901, Gedeon Richter bought the Sas Pharmaceutical Factory in Budapest, where he set up a laboratory for the industrial production of medicines in Hungary, and was the first in Hungary to start producing organotherapeutic preparations, mainly from animal organs. From this, he developed – and in 1907 – founded the pharmaceutical factory named after him in Kőbánya, the capital’s Dictrict 10. He developed and produced excellent medicines that were also recognized abroad. He set up subsidiaries in London and Bucharest, and set up commission warehouses in 34 countries.

As racial persecution intensified in Hungary, he was stripped from his position as director (due to anti-Semitic laws) in 1942, and banned from his factory. Then, he managed the company from his home with the staff he trusted. Even though he had the opportunity to leave the capital and move to Switzerland, he wanted to stay with the company. His wife and himself were hidden by Swiss diplomat Raoul Wallenberg with more than a thousand other Jews. However, he was caught and murdered by the Hungarian "nyilas" [‘arrow cross’] movement in December 1944: along with others, he was shot and thrown into the River Danube.

The plaque on the house at Katona József street 21 in Budapest's District 13 says that "it was from this house that the pharmacist Gedeon Richter, the creator of the Hungarian pharmaceutical industry and founder of Richter Gedeon Plc., was abducted and executed together with his fellow prisoners on December 30, 1944."