Galen Holdings' recent history reads like a stock market fairytale.

It is a tale of how a small, specialty pharmaceutical company, founded in 1968 in Portadown by a former Glass employee, built up a respected business and then took it to the markets.

Fairytales do not always have a happy ending, but according to Dr John King, Galen's executive chairman and one of its first employees, the Northern Ireland company is going to be master of its own fate.

Galen - founded by Dr Allen McClay, now the group's executive president - is made up of two key divisions, pharmaceutical products and pharmaceutical services. The group, listed on the London and Dublin exchanges and on the Nasdaq, also has a clinical trials services business in Ireland and in the United States.

Last year, Galen set a course for global growth with the £308 million sterling (€487 million) acquisition of its chief rival in the United States, Warner Chilcott.

The acquisition has transformed Galen into an international pharmaceutical group and given it a serious opportunity to become a major player in the lucrative American health care market.

It is estimated that the United States accounts for around 40 per cent of all pharmaceutical sales in the world and more than 60 per cent of global profits for the sector.

Many market analysts have seen the move by Galen as a step towards becoming a US-focused, speciality pharmaceutical group.

Just last month the group signalled further acquisitions could be in the pipeline after it raised £300 million in a new share issue that brought a windfall of US investors.

According to Dr King, the support from the American investment community is a reflection of how far the group has travelled since its became a public company.

"When we floated the business in 1997, we had revenues of £25 million. This year, the expectation is that Galen will have revenues of £180 million and that shows how the business has changed over a period of three or four years," Dr King said.

The former Queen's University lecturer admits that both he and Dr McClay never imagined Galen would achieve the position it has today in the UK and US markets.

"I can see a situation in the future when our research and development spend is larger than the revenues were when we floated the business in 1997," he added. Dr King is now the international public face of Galen; he divides his working life between the US, Europe, Ireland and the UK where he spends a lot of time "selling" Galen.

But he does not believe individual personalities are important to the group's success.

"I think the personalities behind the business were important in the early days but Galen is larger now, it is a $2 billion public company and it is no longer dependant on personalities going forward - it has its own firepower.

"We had to have the leadership to grow the business and the management team to take it forward."

Recently, he was heavily involved in the new share exercise, which he believes was another important milestone.

"It was one of the most important things we have done, in extremely difficult markets - to raise a quarter of a billion dollars, in July.

"We know that acquisitions are going to be an important part of our strategy going forward, in addition to the organic growth of the business," Dr King said.

He said the group wanted to establish Galen Holdings in its own right as a specialist pharma company with US shareholders, and the latest offer enabled this.

"It wasn't just about raising money; it was also about broadening our shareholder base. Now our balance sheet is strong, we have cash in the balance sheet and we are interested in strengthening our business, not only in the United States - but we would also like to acquire more products in Europe," he added.

Although Galen was founded in Northern Ireland, Dr King believes the company's focus in the future will be strongly US-based.

"The sector we operate in is specialty pharma and we really see a lot more of them in the United States so it was our objective to go there.

"If you look at our business now, more than 60 per cent of our revenues are in dollars," he said.

"I would like to think that at some stage in the future we would be expanding our activities in Europe, but at this particular stage, in terms of management time and effort, clearly we can get a larger return from the US.

He said the success of Galen has been achieved thanks to three key strategies: organic growth, commercialisation of the company's research and development pipeline, and acquisitions.

"We don't want to give the impression that we are an organisation that relies on product acquisition for our growth - that is not the case," Dr King said.

He said that although the group will concentrate on the US market in the short to medium term, it does have ambitions elsewhere.

"The fact that we have an infrastructure in the US means that we get better returns for our R&D and we are not dependent on the UK and Ireland to deliver a return, and in the next 12 to 18 months we want to add further product acquisitions."

The past year has been one of transition for the business, he said, and it was important that Galen continues to move forward, most particularly in the United States.

"But you couldn't continue to show the rate of growth that we have, unless you broaden your horizons. We are an international company now," Dr King said.