Hartley Atkinson graduated from Otago University with a Masters of Pharmaceuticals Chemistry with Distinction and a Doctorate in Pharmacology. He founded AFT Pharmaceuticals in late 1997 which now has offices in Auckland, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. AFT has been listed on the NZX and ASX in December 2015 with the Atkinson family retaining a 75% stake in the company. AFT and Hartley are heavily involved in clinical research and drug registrations around the world. Their findings have been published in high quality scientific journals including the New England Journal of Medicine.
Building a Multinational Pharma Company from Downunder While working for Swiss multinational, Roche, I was both impressed by the scale of the pharma industry across the EU and USA while at the same time being dismayed at the lack of industry downunder. Armed with modest start-up capital of some $50,000, AFT Pharmaceuticals was started in a room of a suburban garage in late 1997. After slowly building sales, we ventured into drug development in 2004 and then Australia in 2005. From here we have expanded our R&D portfolio of patented drug developments which has included a publication in New England Journal of Medicine, a 408 patient study across New Zealand and USA and further studies across the world in Australia, UK, Russia, Mexico and Jordan. Registrations of our first patented drug have been secured in Europe and further filings around the world are underway as we have increased out-licensing deals to 109 countries. In order to accelerate R&D, capital has been raised via a listing on the ASX and NZX. The Atkinsons still maintain 75% ownership and are committed to development of Pharma downunder. |
