McKesson Corporation
Founders
John McKesson, Charles Olcott · Founded 1833 · HQ today: Irving, Texas, United States
McKesson was founded by John McKesson, Charles Olcott in 1833 in New York City, United States. It is now led by Brian S. Tyler.
In 1833 John McKesson and Charles Olcott opened Olcott & McKesson, a wholesale drug and chemical importer on Maiden Lane in New York City. After Daniel Robbins joined and Olcott died, the business became McKesson & Robbins in 1853. The firm grew by supplying druggists across the country and, in the 1920s and 1930s, by buying regional wholesalers to build a national distribution network.
New York wholesale drug merchant who had worked in the drug trade before co-founding his own firm.
John McKesson co-founded Olcott & McKesson in New York City in 1833 with Charles Olcott, importing and wholesaling drugs and chemicals. After Olcott's death and the arrival of partner Daniel Robbins, the firm became McKesson & Robbins in 1853, the name it carried into the 20th century. John McKesson was born in 1807.
American businessman.
Charles Olcott co-founded Olcott & McKesson in New York City in 1833 alongside John McKesson. Operating out of the financial district, they began as a massive importer and wholesaler of botanical drugs, spices, and therapeutic chemicals from Europe, fundamentally establishing the earliest supply chain for the modern American pharmaceutical industry.
Charles M. Olcott was an American pharmacist. He died in 1853. (Exact birth year remains publicly undisclosed).
Brian S. Tyler
Chief Executive Officer
CEO since April 2019. Tyler led the 2022 opioid settlement, the exit from Europe, the shift toward oncology, multispecialty and biopharma services, and the plan to separate Medical-Surgical Solutions as Wellverse. Revenue grew from $214.3 billion in fiscal 2019 to $403.4 billion in fiscal 2026.
John Hammergren
Chief Executive Officer
Serving as CEO from 2001 to 2019, he became one of the absolute highest-paid executives in American history, driving massive shareholder returns but presiding over the company during the height of the catastrophic opioid distribution crisis.
John McKesson (1807 to 1893) and Charles Olcott were New York merchants who founded Olcott & McKesson in 1833 at 145 Maiden Lane in Manhattan. They started as wholesale drug merchants importing botanical medicines, roots, oils, and chemical extracts from Europe and South America to supply apothecaries and frontier physicians.
Daniel C. Robbins joined the firm as a partner following Charles Olcott's death in 1853. The company was renamed McKesson & Robbins, rapidly growing into America's premier wholesale drug importer and manufacturing one of the country's first commercial lines of gelatin-coated pills.
In the 1850s, McKesson & Robbins built extensive chemical laboratory facilities in Brooklyn and Manhattan, becoming the first wholesale distributor to manufacture standardized pharmaceutical extracts, fluid tinctures, and medicinal pills, winning gold medals at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition.
During the American Civil War (1861 to 1865), McKesson & Robbins served as a primary contractor supplying the Union Army with essential surgical supplies, bandages, quinine for malaria, chloroform, and standardized medical field kits for military hospitals.
John McKesson was born in New York to a prominent family of Scottish descent and apprenticed in wholesale chemicals at age 14. His business philosophy emphasized uncompromising purity and standardized potency in medicines at a time when unregulated adulterated patent medicines flooded American markets.
McKesson & Robbins utilized America's expanding transcontinental railroad network to distribute pharmaceuticals nationwide. In the 1920s, the company orchestrated a large consolidation, acquiring over 60 independent regional drug wholesalers to create the nation's first nationwide wholesale distribution grid.
The descendants of John McKesson and Daniel Robbins managed the enterprise until the 1920s, after which the business was transitioned into a publicly traded corporation with professional executive management and an independent board of directors.
The founding commitment to reliable distribution of high-purity medical therapies established McKesson's enduring role as an essential healthcare utility, enabling the company to survive the Civil War, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, and multiple global health crises.
It was founded by John McKesson. In 1853, Daniel Robbins joined as a partner, renaming it McKesson & Robbins. However, the company has a highly scandalous past. In 1938, it was revealed that the company's president (Philip Musica, a convicted con artist) had completely fabricated $19 million in fake assets. This massive "McKesson & Robbins scandal" permanently changed modern American auditing and accounting laws.
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