Graham Leslie

Graham Leslie founded Galpharm International in 1982 with the aim of both becoming a successful company and reducing the cost of medicines in the UK. Over the following 26 years Graham and his team built Galpharm into the largest privately owned Over the Counter store brand pharmaceutical company in the UK with a staff of 60 in the UK and responsibility for the employment of a further 1250 in India and Asia. In doing so Galpharm was accredited with saving households in the UK £500m pa and saving the NHS £3.5bn. This was achieved mainly by switching pharmaceutical molecules from prescription only to OTC medicines. By 2008 annual sales of Galpharm International had reached £38m at which time the business was sold for $88m. Both before and since the sale Graham has been, and still is, involved in many voluntary roles including the creation of the Galpharm Stadium, being Resident Professor of Enterprise and Entrepreneurship at Huddersfield University as well as several new business ventures such as Direct2Mum.co.uk. And finally to use Graham’s own words “Serving an apprenticeship as a Serial Entrepreneur and investing time, knowledge and experience into expanding SMEs gives me enormous pleasure”.