Leadership
Róbert is a proudly Icelandic serial entrepreneur and the founder, CEO and chairman of biosimilars pioneer Alvotech. He is also chairman of Alvogen, Lotus Pharmaceuticals and Adalvo.
Leadership
Róbert is a proudly Icelandic serial entrepreneur and the founder, CEO and chairman of biosimilars pioneer Alvotech. He is also chairman of Alvogen, Lotus Pharmaceuticals and Adalvo.
Over the past 25 years, Róbert has built a global reputation as a leader in generic pharmaceuticals and biosimilars, creating and growing enterprises with a singular purpose: to improve people's lives by making life-changing medicines more affordable and readily available around the world.
Róbert has founded and led a number of 'unicorns' — global enterprises worth more than $1bn — focused on improving access to the best therapeutics. His companies include generics makers and distributors Actavis, Alvogen, Medis, Adalvo and Lotus, as well as integrated biosimilars pioneer Alvotech. His achievements and business strategies have been the subject of three Harvard Business School case studies.
We live in an age of incredible medical progress, but a wonder drug is only worthy of the name if it's accessible to everyone that needs it. I work to make that happen.
Purpose
Róbert was born and raised in Iceland. He attended public schools in the Reykjavik area and received his BA in business administration from the University of Iceland.
In 1999, at the age of 29, Róbert left his position in the Hamburg office of an Icelandic shipping line and returned to Iceland to become CEO of a near bankrupt local drugmaker, Delta. Merged with another local pharmaceutical company, Actavis was born. By 2008, when he stepped down as CEO, Actavis had grown to be the world’s third- largest generic pharmaceuticals company. Róbert has been a leading force for innovation and growth in the sector ever since.
In 2009, Róbert sketched the business plan for Alvogen on a restaurant napkin. With access to capital severely limited, he assembled a group of investors to buy and revive a struggling US drug manufacturer. Through greenfield startups, acquisitions in Eastern Europe and Asia, and dozens of distribution partnerships, Alvogen grew rapidly into a world-leading generics organization, producing hundreds of products sold across four continents and valued at several billion dollars. Alvogen has received multiple industry awards for its work expanding access to medicines, including CPhI Company of the Year and multiple service awards.
Track record
Led by Róbert and majority-owned by CVC and Temasek, Alvogen is today a major force in generics in the US. It specializes in difficult-to-make drugs and operates the injectables business Almaject. Following more that a decade of continuous growth, its former subsidiaries Lotus (based in Taiwan) and Adalvo (based in Malta) are now major companies in their own right, with Róbert serving as chairman of all three.
In 2009, at the same time he was founding Alvogen, Róbert and a team of longtime collaborators and investors founded Aztiq, an entity focused on investing in pharmaceutical development and health related industries. Alongside other activites, Aztiq has invested in and advanced the strategic development of the companies Róbert has led, providing deep expertise and resources to optimize both patient impact and value creation as these enterprises have grown.
In 2013, Róbert expanded his focus from generics to biosimilars with the founding of Alvotech. Based in Reykjavik, Alvotech was conceived by Róbert as a unique entity built from the ground up: a standalone, independent and fully integrated biosimilars enterprise with its R&D and manufacturing entirely in-house. This integration enables many of his trademark operational qualities, including tight control over quality, production and cost, at the same time providing a flexible platform for the execution of a growing pipeline.
After a nearly a decade and a billion dollars of investment, including backing from Alvogen and Aztiq, Alvotech brought its first products to market. By early 2025, the company had commercialization partnerships covering all major markets worldwide and its first two products had been approved in the US, EU and dozens of other countries. Alvotech is listed on Nasdaq under the ticker ALVO, and employs more than 500 people at its Reykjavik headquarters and across several smaller R&D and production facilities in Europe and India.
Looking back , I was fortunate to be part of a great team of so many talented people.