Upsher-Smith: Advancing Pharmacotherapy, Improving Life.

For nearly 100 years, Upsher-Smith Laboratories has been a partner in healthcare, striving to deliver high-value, high-quality therapies and solutions that measurably improve individuals’ lives. As a family-owned pharmaceutical company, Upsher-Smith is able to adapt and thrive in a dynamic healthcare environment by continually addressing the ever-changing needs of pharmacists, patients, physicians, and healthcare organizations. Where there is a need, the company will work to deliver solutions that simplify access to treatment, deliver better health outcomes, and enhance life.

The Beginnings

The story began in 1919, when English-born pharmacist and chemist Frederick Alfred Upsher Smith started a company to refine digitalis. Operating from a laboratory in Minneapolis, the company’s great innovation was to deliver digitalis in a standardized potency—with consistency in dosage and quality from one batch to the next—an advancement never before achieved in the 134 years since the drug’s discovery. Upsher Smith gave new life to an old drug, and physicians and pharmacists throughout North America ensured that this improved medication benefited thousands of people.

This legacy continued with the formulation and introduction of novel branded generics that eliminated the need for laborious compounding, offered enhanced safety, and provided unique delivery systems. Upsher-Smith also pioneered the dispensing of unit-dose generic medications, which helped to eliminate the need for hospital pharmacists to individually measure doses of drugs. By developing a reliable unit-dose product line, the company met the industry-wide challenge of preventing drug dosing errors and improving the health outcomes of hospital patients.

Upsher-Smith Today

Today, Upsher-Smith continues its commitment to delivering high-quality, innovative therapies and solutions from its headquarters in Minnesota, as well as its satellite facilities. The company has continued to build a broad portfolio of generic drugs, while at the same time focusing on developing medications for disorders of the central nervous system (CNS). Through its development of these and other therapies, Upsher-Smith is building on its long-standing tradition of quality, innovation and trust.