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EFTA00955053 | EFTA00955055 Meantime, competition in the U.S. and austerity measures in Europe are holding drug prices down. 'Tough Challenges' "It's hard to get comfortable with how they can grow the business amid some of these tough challenges," says Gary Nachman, an analyst at Susquehanna Financial Group LLLP in New York. Teva's fourth-quarter profit excluding some costs fell 19 percent to $1.14 billion from a year earlier as sales dropped 7.5 percent to $5.25 billion. Frost, who grew up in a middle-class Jewish household in South Philadelphia, has been a lifelong achiever. He loved reading and the arts, spending a year in Paris en route to a bachelor's degree in French literature from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduation from Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University in the Bronx in 1961, Frost taught dermatology at the University of Miami. In 1972, he founded a dermatology department at Miami's Mount Sinai Medical Center and started doing deals on the side. 'Smart Guy' "Phil was a smart guy scientifically and had great instinct and ambition, but he didn't know the business that well," says Michael Jaharis, an early partner. Jaharis, 84, himself became a billionaire after selling Kos Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2006 to Abbott Laboratories for $3.7 billion. "I knew what it took to get a drug approved. We had a natural, great mix." The pair bought Key Pharmaceuticals, boosting Key's sales via asthma drug Theo-Dur and cardiovascular patch Nitro-Dur. Frost switched gears with Ivax. He founded the company to make branded drugs and turned to generics when the 1984 Hatch-Waxman Act gave advantages to the first drug copiers. "He recognized, if we could be first, there was a great deal of profit," says Steven Rubin, Ivax's former general counsel and a current Opko executive. Ivax Sale As generics competition intensified, Frost pounced again. He got together with Israel Makov, then-CEO of Teva, a main Ivax rival. The two discussed Teva's buying Ivax as they and their wives basked on a friend's yacht off Capri, Italy, in the summer of 2004. They met again the next year, punctuating their boat trip with walks on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, Spain, and sealing the deal at New York's Sherry-Netherland hotel. "Coming together made great sense for both our companies," Frost says. Some Israeli investors remain skeptical. As Teva's shares slid last year, they blasted the board for boosting directors' compensation. Frost got a 74 percent raise to $900,000 a year and an additional $700,000 for private airplane expenses. Jaharis, his early partner, recalls how Frost recently boasted about the golden sink on the jet he bought from casinos magnate Steve Wynn. Modesty Legacy "The company has a legacy of modesty established by Eli Hurvitz," says Platinum Investment Portfolio Management Ltd. CEO Gadi Haber, who personally holds Teva stock. "With the shares performing so poorly, we find it unconscionable for the board to reward itself." Hurvitz died in 2011. Frost sees it differently: "Remuneration is incidental," he says. "It's trivial, considering the size of Teva." EFTA00955055
May 8, 2026 at 9:58 AM