Dr Stavros Nicolaou receives medal honour
- Wits Alumni Relations
Each year the pharmaceutical congress honours a pharmacist who has made a significant contribution to the industrial sector globally.
Dr Stavros Nicolaou (BPharm 1986, DSc Med 2019 honoris causa), senior executive of strategic trade at Aspen Pharma Group, was awarded the 2024 Industrial Pharmacy Section Medal for his leadership and making significant contributions to healthcare over nearly three decades in the pharmaceutical industry.
The award was presented at the 82nd International Pharmaceutical Federation (FIP) Congress in Cape Town, which took place for the first time in Africa during the first week of September.
The FIP is a global federation representing over four million pharmacists, pharmaceutical scientists and pharmaceutical educators around the world. Founded in 1912, FIP works to advance pharmacy practice and science globally, fostering excellence in healthcare delivery through education, research, and collaboration through their 156 national organisations, academic institutional members and individual members.
Dr Nicolaou was acknowledged for his excellence in the practice of pharmaceutical sciences, his impact on industrial pharmacy developments, his leadership skills and ability to build links with other branches of the profession.
He is a loyal Wits alumnus, and was guest speaker at 2023 Founders' Tea. He has almost 34 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, mainly in domestic and international general management. He has been recognised in the Global Top 100 Health Edition Honorees Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) in healthcare and received Greece’s ARGO Public Service Award from the President of Greece in 2023. The award is given to exceptional Hellenics around the world, in recognition of their on-going humanitarian efforts. He serves on several industry boards and advisory councils.
Dr Nicolaou is passionate about championing local production of medicines. At the conference he presented a blueprint for reform of vaccine and pharmaceutical procurement by international agencies asking: “It's a really sad indictment that … agencies procure next to no vaccines from Africa. Yet Africa, for example, sits with 70% of the world's HIV-infected [population] and has to import most of our ARVs. How could that ever make sense?”
In 2022 Professor Yahya Choonara (BPharm 2002, MPharm 2004, PhD 2009) was awarded the 2022 Distinguished Pharmaceutical Science Award from the FIP in recognition of his outstanding research and significant contributions to the pharmaceutical sciences globally.
For the first time in the 82-year history of the FIP, two individuals from the same Pharmacy School, at Wits, have been recognised globally by the organisation.