Smith and Nephew Plc

Smith & Nephew is a global medical technology business dedicated to helping improve people's lives.

The Group has a history dating back 160 years to the family enterprise of Thomas James Smith who opened a small pharmacy in Hull, England in 1856. On his death in 1896, his nephew Horatio Nelson Smith took over the management of the business.

A few days after the declaration of World War 1 in 1914, Horatio Nelson Smith (the nephew of the company founder T. J Smith) met with an envoy of the French President in London. The company was awarded a contract to supply £350,000 of surgical and field dressings, to be delivered in five months.

By the late 1990s, Smith & Nephew had expanded into being a diverse healthcare conglomerate with operations across the globe, including various medical devices, personal care products and traditional and pioneering woundcare treatments.

In 1998, Smith & Nephew announced a major restructuring to focus management attention and investment on three business units — wound management, endoscopy and orthopaedics— which offered high growth and margin opportunities.