Stefano Pessina is the Italian billionaire who masterminded the 2006 expansion of two of the worlds largest pharmaceutical companies. Alliance UniChem and Boots Cluster merged to skeleton Alliance Boots, with Stefano Pessina beguiling nearly 15 % of the new company in shares. At the time of the spread, these shares were beneficial of around 1. 5 billion, representing just reward for the hard functioning Pessina had put in since setting up his first pharmaceutical company, Alleanza Farmaceutica, in 1977.
Stefano was born in Milan, into a middle class family. His father ran a pharmaceutical company, including several other businesses, so it is perhaps no surprise that Stefano followed his fathers footsteps into business.
Stefano attended Milan University, where he studied nuclear physics. He has stated in the past that had he not gone into business with his own pharmaceutical company, he would have enjoyed life as a scientific academic.
Pessina has his father, once again, to thank for choosing business over academia. The family business was a small pharmacy distribution company when Stefano took it over. In the years that followed, he moulded it first into a national distribution company in Italy, then took it further into Europe driving the growth of the business at an impressive pace.
Stefano Pessinas hard work paid off in 1997 when he brokered the deal to merge his company with UniChem, creating Alliance UniChem, of which Pessina owned 36 %.
Alliance UniChem then merged with Boots Group in 2006, making Stefano Pessina one of the most influential men in the world of pharmaceuticals.
