Meet The New Billionaire Getting Rich Making Injectors For Blockbuster Drugs Like Ozempic

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4.8 • 6 Ratings

🗓️ 25 April 2024

⏱️ 12 minutes

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Summary

The runaway success of weight loss drugs took the markets by storm last year, spurring huge stock gains for drugmakers like Novo Nordisk, which makes Wegovy and Ozempic. Most patients take them at home in weekly injections, using plastic, pen-like devices known as autoinjectors, filled with the liquid medication and fitted with a tiny needle as wide as two human hairs. As demand for the drugs soars, so does the need for those devices. That growth has now minted a new billionaire: Roger Samuelsson, the 60-year-old Swedish cofounder of Switzerland-based SHL Medical, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of autoinjectors. Forbes estimates he’s worth $3 billion, largely thanks to his 69% stake in the company he cofounded in 1989. The remaining 31% is held by Swedish private equity firm EQT—which has minted seven billionaires over the years—and Athos, the family office of the billionaire Struengmann brothers. Press-shy Samuelsson, who declined multiple requests for an interview, also enjoys fast cars (he raced in the 2016 Ferrari Challenge series) and owns the 414-foot megayacht Octopus, which he bought in 2021; the yacht was built for its first owner, Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen (d. 2018). See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	S-H-L Medical started out in 1989 making medical devices from a single factory in Taiwan.
0:05.0	Now the firm is poised to capture a chunk of the booming market for weight loss drugs.
0:12.0	Hi everybody, I'm Br Brittany Lewis with Forbes breaking news
0:14.9	joining me now is my colleague Forbes staff writer Giacomo Tonini.
0:18.6	Giacomo thanks so much for joining me.
0:20.3	Hey Brittany thanks for having me.
0:21.3	As we know weight loss drugs have seen a boom
0:23.8	over the last year, and so has the market for the pen
0:26.7	that people used to inject them.
0:28.6	And you're reporting one man was able to capitalize on this trend,
0:31.9	so much so he is now a billionaire so let's talk
0:35.0	about him his name's Roger Samuelson who is he and what does he do right so
0:39.7	Roger Samuelson is a Swedish entrepreneur.
0:42.8	He started this company called SHL Medical in Taiwan in 1989.
0:48.3	And they are one of the world's largest makers of auto injectors.
0:51.4	They control 25% of the global market. And auto injectors. They control 25% of the global market and auto injectors like you're saying are these small pen-like devices with these tiny needles that patients for so many different diseases use to take their medication. Obviously weight loss drugs
1:05.4	like Ozempeg, we have seen a huge boom in recent years, especially last year, and the patients will
1:12.0	take them in weekly injections. and then there's all kinds of other drugs from
1:16.7	Surisis to rheumatoid arthritis that use these kinds of these devices called auto Interactors and Samuelson we now estimate as a billionaire
1:26.7	with an estimated net worth of three billion dollars he owns 69% of the company
1:32.0	SHL Medical.
1:33.7	And they, you know, they're one of the biggest producers of these,
	...

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