The Story of the First Pharmacy in Saudi Arabia

Dear reader, when we look back at the beginnings of modern healthcare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, we find a story that starts from a small shop in one of old Jeddah’s streets. It was a simple pharmacy opened by an ambitious young man,Mohammed Saeed Tamer, in 1922. But it was not just a small business; it was the first spark in a long journey that would eventually lead to what we know today as Tamer Group, one of the largest healthcare groups in the Kingdom and the region. At that time, people mainly depended on traditional medicine, herbal remedies, and “attareen” (herb sellers), while modern medicines were rare and hard to get. In this context, the idea of opening the first modern pharmacy in Jeddah was born to serve as a stable, accessible window to modern medicines in the heart of the city.

Many elderly people in Jeddah still recall how people used to go to “Tamer Pharmacy” not only to buy medicine but also to seek advice and guidance. The pharmacist played the role of a “health educator”, explaining to patients what a dose means, why they must complete the full treatment course, and how to store medicines away from heat and humidity, at a time when these ideas were not common or well known as they are today. The pharmacy was, in reality, a small health school for the community, not just a shop with shelves and bottles.

Dear reader, having a leading, well-organized pharmacy like this helped shape the early structure of the pharmaceutical supply chain in the Kingdom. The pharmacy did not remain just a retail outlet; it gradually turned into a gateway for importing medicines from global companies, helping introduce new types of drugs to the Saudi market. As its business grew, Mohammed Saeed Tamer began building representation and partnership agreements with international pharmaceutical companies. Step by step, the pharmacy evolved from a small personal project into the core of a structured family company, which became the foundation of what we now know as Tamer Group.

This transformation shows how a simple idea can grow over time, especially when it moves in parallel with strong government support for this vital sector. May God preserve this country. From a single pharmacy in Jeddah more than a century ago, the group’s activities expanded to include the distribution of medicines, medical devices, nutrition products, and personal care items across different regions of the Kingdom and the Gulf. It now represents dozens of global pharmaceutical brands and plays a major role in managing medicine supply chains for both public and private hospitals. It has also entered into important industrial partnerships, such as the Saudi-Japanese Pharmaceutical Company (SAJA) and others. In this way, the impact of the first pharmacy went far beyond the street where it started and became part of building an integrated health and economic system serving society at the national and regional levels.

With the establishment of colleges of pharmacy in the Kingdom and the graduation of the first generations of Saudi pharmacists in the last century, the story of this pharmacy was no longer only about trade, but also about building human capacity. The group that grew out of that historic pharmacy became a place that absorbed hundreds of Saudi pharmacists, working in its warehouses, branches, and subsidiaries. They receive practical training on good storage practices, distribution management, pharmaceutical marketing, and structured corporate work. In this sense, Tamer Group became a practical school parallel to university education, combining scientific knowledge with field experience and fostering a new professional culture in the Saudi pharmaceutical market.

Today, in an age of e-prescriptions, smart pharmacies, and medicine delivery apps, it may be easy to forget how the story began. But when we pause and look again, we realize that behind the advanced pharmaceutical system we see in the Kingdom, there are founding stories like the story of the first pharmacy in the country, a small shop with wooden shelves, medicines arriving in simple boxes by ship, run by one man with a big dream. That dream is what turned that first pharmacy into a starting point for a journey that has lasted more than a hundred years, where the story of a pioneering Saudi family became intertwined with the story of a nation building its modern healthcare system.

And with the ambitions of Vision 2030 to localize pharmaceutical and biotech industries, supported endlessly by the leadership of this blessed country, the story continues. The same spirit that once opened a small pharmacy in old Jeddah is now pushing towards factories, research centers, and partnerships that aim to make the Kingdom not only a consumer of medicines, but also a producer and innovator that serves patients at home and abroad.