[1] After university Leitner worked in research for Vianova, an Austrian subsidiary of Hoechst AG.
In 1986, he founded the pharmaceutical company Genericon Pharma[3] together with his former classmate Martin Bartenstein, who would later become a mininister in the Austrian government.
Genericon Pharma’s Hungarian subsidiary Pharmavit achieved great success with effervescent tablets and generic drugs.
[1] In 1995, the company was bought by the US pharmaceutical group Bristol Myers Squibb for USD 110 million.
[2] In July 2021, Joachim Schönbeck was appointed as Leitner's successor as CEO of Andritz AG starting in April 2022.