A Woman of Conviction

Dr Nicole Bru, researcher and entrepreneur

“What matters in life is being able to influence the course of things!” That is the belief of Nicole Bru, doctor, researcher and businesswoman.

To pay for her medical studies, Nicole Bru joined UPSA in 1971 within the training body of the Sales Promotion team. She was to remain with the firm for more than twenty years, during which time she regularly returned to her studies whenever she felt the need to master essential techniques. That included training at the Centre de Perfectionnement aux Affaires (CPA) in Paris (now the HEC Executive MBA). “The pharmaceutical industry fascinated me from the start because of the many different disciplines that need to be mastered: research, marketing, production, law, ethics ... together with Man, and the possibility of alleviating human suffering, at the heart of it all.”

Within UPSA, Dr Nicole Bru showed determination and a passion for innovation. Her distinguished career led her to the position of director of research, then to the directorship of the firm itself, alongside Dr Jean Bru, whose wife she became in 1980. When he died suddenly in 1989, she was in charge of scientific affairs and strategy. She decided to take over from him.

In her five years as chairman of the UPSA Group, Dr Nicole Bru doubled the turnover. In 1994 she was voted “Businesswoman of the Year.” But the same year she was obliged to transfer all her shares to the American biopharmaceutical group Bristol-Myers Squibb to pay the inheritance tax levied on her. She then immediately reinvested in pharmaceutical research, which is so very important to her. She developed the Halisol Group, and again more than doubled its value.

Perpetuating values

As soon as she retired from the world of industry, Dr Nicole Bru combined her insatiable thirst for enterprise with a strong commitment towards worthy causes when she created the Institut UPSA de la Douleur (IUD) and the Association Docteurs Bru… She was also able at last to indulge her passion for flying helicopters.

Wishing to perpetuate the memory of the founders of Laboratoires UPSA by leaving “something useful and sustainable in this world”, Dr Nicole Bru created the Fondation Bru in 2005. “To be present where there is no one else, to support excellence and ambitious pioneering projects aiming to serve fine causes”: that is the line of conduct she assigned to the foundation, which now brings together all of her sponsorship activities. Thus the values of the entrepreneurs-cum-researchers, after whom the foundation is named, will live on.

Bru doctors

Camille Bru

Dr Jean Bru

A success story

Dr Nicole Bru

Businesswoman of the Year - Veuve Cliquot Prize, 1994