Our history

Improving health since 1901

The company known today as Teva started as a small business in Jerusalem in 1901. Teva has since grown significantly worldwide and is now a global leader in generic and specialty medicines.

Since Teva’s establishment in Jerusalem in 1901, our aim has been to help patients live longer, healthier lives. As we work to find solutions to tomorrow’s biggest healthcare challenges, we look back with pride at our humble beginnings and past accomplishments. 

When, over a century ago, Chaim Salomon, Moshe Levin, and Yitschak Elstein came together in Jerusalem to form a small pharmaceutical business, they could not have imagined that their company would go on to be a world leader in the industry.

The company known today as Teva started as a small business in Jerusalem in 1901. The young company, named after its pharmacist founders, Salomon, Levin and Elstein Ltd, distributed imported medicines throughout the region using mule trains and camel caravans.

Over the following decades, the company’s growth was spurred as demand for locally produced medicines grew.

In 1976, the company became Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd - Teva is the Hebrew word for “nature”.

Teva grew significantly across the globe through numerous successful acquisitions which integrated and enhanced our expertise in innovative and generic medicines, as well as new therapeutic areas and markets. 

These days Teva offers the world's largest medicine cabinet, providing medicines to about 200 million people around the world every day. With one of the most competitive operational networks in the industry, Teva now produces 1,800 unique molecules and a portfolio of 3,500 products, spanning generics, specialty and over the counter medicines.

Our future looks bright

Today, Teva aims to be a new kind of pharmaceutical company.

One liberated from the traditional definition of a generic medicines company. A company with a category-defying portfolio, harnessing our generics expertise and stepping up innovation, continuing the momentum behind the discovery, delivery and expanded development of modern medicine.

To healthcare professionals, patients, caregivers and families, we commit to push the boundaries to help deliver quality medicine wherever it is needed, discover life changing treatments and strive forward through scientific innovation.

Because when it comes to health, good is not enough for us.

THIS is the Teva legacy – to be stronger, bolder and simpler in the way we operate and relentless in our growth, by understanding what’s next – in science, for patients, people and society.

We are all in for better health

Moving forward together with science the treats, inspired by the people we serve.

We are Teva