Richard Roberts (pharmaceutical executive)


Richard H. Roberts is an American pharmaceutical executive, philanthropist, and political activist.

Biography

Born in a secular Jewish family Philadelphia in 1957 and raised in Abington Township, Pennsylvania, the son of Albert Roberts. His father, a chemist, started URL Pharma in 1946 which manufactured steroidal hormones that treated pain by collecting pig pituitary glands from slaughterhouses. Roberts earned a M.D. and a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania. After school, he took over his father’s money-losing pharmaceutical company. In 1997, he sold majority control of the firm to several venture capital firms which left him as the CEO of the company with a ~30% ownership interest.
In 2009, the FDA approved colchicine as a monotherapy for the treatment of three different indications and gave URL Pharma a three-year marketing exclusivity agreement in exchange for URL Pharma doing 17 new studies and investing $100 million into the product. URL Pharma subsequently raised the price from $0.09 per tablet to $4.85; and in October 2010, the FDA removed the older unapproved colchicine from the market. Roberts indicated that the price increase mirrored other approved and branded drugs that were used to treat gout pain. URL Pharma returned to profitability with its gout treatment branded Colcrys consisting of 72% of the companies $600 million in sales in 2011. Roberts sold URL Pharma for $800 million in June 2012 to Takeda Pharmaceuticals of Japan.

Political activism

Roberts is a top donor to Republican politicians including Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, and Rand Paul. In 2010, he gave $750,000 to the campaign of Mitt Romney. In 2012, Roberts contributed $1 million to a super PAC that supported U.S. Representative Allen West.

Personal life

Roberts is married with six children and lives in Lakewood, New Jersey. He credits the principles of Orthodox Judaism as helping him to be a success and is one of the largest philanthropists to the orthodox community in Lakewood.