![]() ![]() ![]() In 1973, Sherman and Ulster sold Empire for $2 million, and launched Apotex.Īlso based in Toronto, Apotex would become one of the largest generic drug manufacturers in the world. “By the end of 1972, sales had reached a level of a little under two million dollars a year,” Barry wrote. According to Barry’s book as well as legal depositions and court testimony, Sherman turned the company around, making it profitable and efficient. Sherman and Ulster ran Empire Labs for nearly five years. He added that Empire Labs was an “obvious target.” I was interested in both science and business, and I also wanted to return to Toronto to live,” Barry wrote. in January 1967, I had decided that I did not want to seek employment as an astronautical engineer. In 1967, Barry and Joel Ulster, a high school friend and business partner, purchased the company. A few weeks later, his wife, Beverly, also passed away, orphaning their four young boys and leaving Empire Labs in limbo. In November 1965, at the age of 41, Lou Winter died suddenly of a brain aneurysm. “Although I did not know it the time, these summers at Empire Laboratories would later prove to be of critical importance to my future career,” Barry wrote. Lou Winter owned Toronto-based Empire Labs, one of the first generic drug companies in Canada, and got his nephew to pick up and deliver urine samples and pharmaceuticals. was a perfect 5.0.”īetween his years collecting degrees, Barry spent some summers working for his beloved Uncle Lou. ![]() He eventually graduated in 1965, noting “my grade point average on leaving M.I.T. But as he got older, he figured out that he was good at math and science, and his competitive nature kicked into high gear.īarry went on to get a degree in engineering physics (now engineering science) from the University of Toronto, spent a summer working at NASA and moved to Boston, where he attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He admits that in his early years, he did not do well in school. In his memoir, Barry describes having few friends and being “lethargic … physically awkward and introverted” as a teen. “My mother later told me that she preferred the name ‘Barry,’ but thought that ‘Bernard’ sounded more distinguished and would serve me better as a legal name in later life.” “My legal given names were Bernard Charles, but I have always been called Barry,” he wrote. Incomplete or not, A Legacy of Thoughts provides clues to his early life, his business philosophy, even his views on religion and God. But we were able to access it because it was included in a civil lawsuit, and is therefore in the public domain. It was never published in fact, he never even finished writing it. ![]() Sherman began writing the book in December 1996. I thus set out to write this text in the perhaps arrogant belief that what I have to say may be of use or interest to my progeny and others.” “However, memories are brief, and even should there survive some physical manifestation of my existence, my thoughts will be forever lost unless I commit them to paper. “I have enjoyed considerable success in building the Apotex group of companies, which probably will survive me,” Barry wrote. Over his lifetime, Barry Sherman gave a number of media interviews, but perhaps the best way to understand him is through what he wrote in an autobiography called A Legacy of Thoughts. ![]()
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