From humble beginnings to a world-leader, this Waitakere buiness is still showing us how to succeed on the world stage.

In the late 1970s Graeme Douglas decided to sell his chemist shop in Te Atatu South, move down the road, and branch into developing pharmaceuticals. Today, thirty years later, Douglas Pharmaceuticals is a company which employs hundreds, is worth over $100 million, and which exports the vast majority of its product.

It wasn't always this way, says Mr Douglas. Originally Douglas Pharmaceuticals was geared towards supplying only the domestic market. However, in the late 1980's New Zealand's drug buying agency Pharmac started driving down prices and driving other Kiwi-owned pharmaceutical companies out of business in the process.As unlimited Magazine wrote of Douglas Pharmaceuticals in 2004: "[its] development over nearly four decades owes plenty to its founder's ability to see and exploit a commercial niche, capacity to inspire staff, and sheer tenacity in the face of the potentially disastrous loss of half its domestic trade in the late 1990s".

Says Mr Douglas: "we never set out to be a manufacturer of pharmaceuticals for export, we were designed to supply the domestic market - but we saw a niche and we went for it. There was certainly no master plan."

Douglas Pharmaceuticals is the largest equal full-time private employer in Waitakere with 400 employees - the majority of whom are locals. Mr Douglas believes the key to running a successful company, and being a good employer, is to offer your workers exciting new challenges and opportunities.

Some of the most well known products that Douglas Pharmaceuticals sells on the domestic market is the contraceptive pill Estelle, skin treatment Pinetarsol and it also imports Viagra. Asked why he chose to locate where he did, Mr Douglas says he lives just down the road from his site and he is reminded everyday of the convenience factor as he watches the traffic crawl along the North Western motorway every weekday.

Despite offers from cities throughout the world to relocate - with healthy tax breaks thrown in - Mr Douglas says "we're happy here in Waitakere - there's certainly no plan to leave."

Find out more
visit: www.douglas.co.nz