Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (also known as Teva Pharmaceuticals) is an Israeli multinational pharmaceutical company with headquarters in Tel Aviv, Israel. It specializes primarily in generic drugs, but other business interests include active pharmaceutical ingredients and, to a lesser extent, proprietary pharmaceuticals. Teva Pharmaceuticals was the largest generic drug manufacturer, when it was surpassed briefly by US-based Pfizer. Teva regained its market leader position once Pfizer spun off its generic drug division in a merger with Mylan, forming the new company Viatris at the end of 2020. Overall, Teva is the 18th largest pharmaceutical company in the world. Teva's facilities are located in Israel, North America, Europe, Australia, and South America. Teva shares are listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The company is a member of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA). History Salomon, Levin, and Elstein Teva's earliest predecessor was SLE, Ltd., a wholesale drug business founded in 1901 in Jerusalem, which at that time was part of the Ottoman Empire's Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem. SLE Ltd. took its name from the initials of its three cofounders: Chaim Salomon, Moshe Levin and Yitschak Elstein, and used camels to make deliveries. During the 1930s, new immigrants from Europe founded several pharmaceutical companies including Teva ("nature" in Hebrew) and Zori. In the 1930s, Salomon, Levin, and Elstein Ltd. also founded Assia, a pharmaceutical company. Teva Pharmaceutical Industries 1935–1949 Teva Pharmaceutical Industries took its present form through the efforts of Günther Friedländer and his aunt Else Kober on May 1, 1935. The original registration was under the name Teva Middle East Pharmaceutical & Chemical Works Co. Ltd. in Jerusalem, then part of Mandatory Palestine. Friedländer was a German pharmacist, botanist and pharmacognosist, who immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1934, following the Nazi Party Rise to power. The company was built with an investment of 4,900 pounds sterling, which came from the family's own capital and partly from loans from other German immigrants. Capital shortage led to the joining of the banker Alfred Feuchtwanger as a partner in Teva, who received 33% of the shares in return for his investment. Friedländer's business philosophy opined that the pharmaceutical industry has a reliable basis in difficult economic times, since "A Jewish mother will always buy medicine for her children". In the Second World War, the company provided medicine to the allied forces and in particular to the British army present in the Middle