Dr. Willmar Schwabe
| Dr. Willmar Schwabe Medicines
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|---|---|
 |
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| legal form | Group , group of companies , GmbH & Co. KG (parent company) |
| founding | December 11, 1865 ( legal capacity ) January 1, 1866 |
| Seat |
Karlsruhe , Germany
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| management |
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| Number of employees | 3,600 (2016) |
| sales | EUR 900 million (2016) |
| Branch |
Phytopharmaka Dietary Supplements Health Care Self-Help |
| Website | www.schwabe.de |
| As of December 31, 2016 | |
The Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG (short Schwabe ) is the parent company of the Schwabe group and is also called Group Schwabe or Schwabe Group referred. The pharmaceutical company was founded in Leipzig in 1865 , started operations the following year and is family-owned. The head office was moved to Karlsruhe in 1946 . In the 1980s and 1990s, the company formed into a major global company through company foundings, acquisitions and investments .
The Schwabe Group consists of 93 companies worldwide with a total of 3,600 employees, 1,405 of them in Germany , including around 700 at the main company (as of December 31, 2016). In 2015, Schwabe generated group sales of around 900 million euros. The phytopharmaceuticals and dietary supplements sector accounted for 740 million euros, the export and foreign share was 75 percent. The research expenditure was 32 million euros. The research focus is on medicinal herbal extracts . The focus of the group is the health and pharmaceutical industry with a specialization in medicinal herbalism and homeopathy based finished medicinal products , the phytopharmaceuticals and homeopathics , nutritional supplements of medicinal herbal origin as well as additional services for holistic health care and self-help, such as B. Exercise programs for mental and physical fitness.
history
1834–1865: Formative background of the Schwabe family
Today's Schwabe Group can be traced back to an office for the production of homeopathic remedies , which was founded by Willmar Schwabe , son of the pharmacy owner Carl Robert Schwabe. Living the first few years in Vogtland , the Schwabe family moved to Dresden , where they were co-owners of the "drugstore and color goods store Gehe & Co.", which was founded in 1834 as "drugstore and color goods store Gehe & Schwabe".
Characterized by this, Willmar Schwabe completed an apprenticeship as a pharmacist in Dresden's Marienapotheke after high school , where he met Luise Eder, the daughter of the pharmacy owner, whom he was to marry in 1870. Afterwards Schwabe went to Bielefeld for some time , where he perfected his knowledge as an assistant in the Aschhoff'sche pharmacy. Then he went to Leipzig to attend the University Pharmacy to study. During this time Schwabe got to know the homoeopathic teachings of Samuel Hahnemann , of which he became a staunch supporter. 1861 put Schwabe his state exam from with the result "Excellent" and he with his dissertation on cinchonine at age 24 in 1863 doctorate acquired.
Because of this academic degree , which was still rare at the time, and his good degree, the Leipzig pharmacists left Schwabe in charge of the administration of their “homeopathic dispensing facility of the united pharmacists in Leipzig” in 1863 . Realizing that there was more money to be made in the preparation of medicines and their wholesale trade than with the retail sale , he soon planned to set up such a company himself. The fact that his father was already a partner in a company certainly contributed to this. In 1865, Schwabe applied for permission to open a “wholesaling and exporting business of homeopathic products” in Leipzig.
Schwabe had stated in his application that he did not want to found his company until 1866, which was probably only in order to temporarily keep his position in the homeopathic dispensary. Nevertheless, after various officially prescribed steps, such as the appraisal of the application by the city district doctor Hugo Sonnenkalb and its approval by the Saxon Ministry of the Interior , the city physician committed to the new company on November 10, 1865. On December 5th he showed the Leipzig Commercial Court the founding of his company “ Homöopathische Central-Officin Dr. Willmar Schwabe in Leipzig ”. The district court confirmed this two days later, while the official announcement in the Leipziger Tageblatt took place on the 11th of the month. The company was then legally competent. When this company was founded, Schwabe left as administrator of the homeopathic dispensing facility. Since then, the fifth generation of the Schwabe family has played a key role in shaping the company.
1865–1871: Founding phase and contested expansion
After the formal establishment of the company at the end of 1865, the " Homeopathic Central-Officin Dr. Willmar Schwabe in Leipzig “ in operation on January 1st, 1866 in the Centralhalle . The then 26-year-old Willmar Schwabe wanted his company to research medicinal herbal preparations - initially mother tinctures as required for homeopathic medicines according to Samuel Hahnemann - and to produce them in standardized form. To this end, he set up his own institute with the aim of defining pharmaceutical guidelines and developing both analytical procedures and new types of controls for intermediate and end products.
With his research he laid the foundation for what is today the model for modern pharmaceutical manufacturing technology and standardized the manufacturing steps and summarized them a few years later in the globally recognized standard work Pharmacopoea homoeopathica polyglottica , because with his manufacturing and shipping company he also founded a publishing house with typesetting , printing and bookbinding , which distributed relevant literature. Not insignificant for future business success should have been that Schwabe also ensured the dissemination of homeopathic teaching. In addition, Schwabe began to put together a comprehensive medical library from the start . In addition, three specialist journals were published here by the publisher, including the “Allgemeine Homöopathische Zeitung”, the official organ of the Central Homeopathic Association of Germany , and the influential “Leipziger Popular Zeitschrift für Homöopathie”.
Schwabe also planned to sell his medicines domestically only to pharmacies, but mainly to export them in large quantities to France , England and America . In addition, he needed a homeopathic pharmacy in Leipzig for short-term sales of his products until the international market would be conquered. It was probably the case that his previous employers, the owners of the homeopathic dispensing facility, saw him as a competitor and did not buy or sell any medicines from him. This planned by Schwabe Offizin should immediately be privileged as a pharmacy because of this designation greater prestige depended than other company names as Dispensieranstalt.
That is why on February 27, 1866 in Leipzig he asked for permission to set up a homeopathic pharmacy. In accordance with the general concerns about homeopathy, but also because the owners of the homeopathic dispensing facility had opposed it, the application was rejected on November 6, 1866. Immediately contradicting this, however, the responsible Saxon ministry rejected it on February 7, 1867 on the grounds that "there was no need for a second homeopathic pharmacy". Further attempts by Schwabe to achieve his goal followed.
In 1869, however, the situation had changed decisively for him. In Prussia , a regulation had been issued that made it mandatory for the homeopathic doctors there to obtain their mother tinctures and other homeopathic medicines only from real homeopathic pharmacies. Of course, they did not want his company to suffer severe sales losses and thus Leipzig to lose tax revenue . After a few negotiations it came about that Schwabe, on December 7th, 1870, received the approval for the establishment of a homeopathic pharmacy. On February 17, 1871, the Leipziger Tageblatt reported that Schwabe had opened a new second homeopathic pharmacy under the name " Homeopathic Central Pharmacy zum Samuel Hahnemann ".
1871–1946: growth into a global company
In 1878 the first phytopharmaceutical specialty was created, the wound and healing ointment “Hamamelis-Salbe-Schwabe”, which is based on witch hazel . In the same year, Schwabe had already succeeded in acquiring its fiercest competitor, who, to his annoyance, had been allowed to use the name "Homeopathic Central Pharmacy Täschner & Co." since 1866. It was still managed by William Steinmetz, who previously took over the office of the homeopathic dispensing facility as a tenant . The pharmacy subsequently kept the name it had previously, as it was probably contractually agreed. However , Schwabe did not have the monopoly on homeopathic goods with this pharmacy, since all newly licensed pharmacies had meanwhile been allowed to have facilities for homeopathy. In order to at least be the market leader , Schwabe acquired the homeopathic medicine from Theodor Markgraf in 1880.
Due to Schwabe's commitment, the manufacture of medicinal substances and the mail order business grew very quickly. As part of a business reorientation, the first two branches with the company's products in other cities of the German Empire were opened in 1891, in the year of the 25th business anniversary , and more and more followed. In 1895 the first depot abroad was opened in Amsterdam . One followed in São Paulo . In each of the following years, numerous other branches were founded in many countries, so that Schwabe quickly rose to become the leading global company for homeopathic products and there was hardly a country on earth to which these were not exported. By 1913 there were around 750 branches worldwide. Later, however, you should decide to move the business focus away from sales , but instead, as in the beginning, on the manufacture and bulk shipping of preparations .
Willmar Schwabe died in 1917 at the age of 78. His son of the same name, who was a pharmacist and councilor and had been actively involved in the company as a co-owner since 1908, took over the large company and expanded the work further for everything related to homeopathy. In 1926 the company already had more than 2,500 branches in Germany and abroad.
Under his direction, the forerunner of today were chromatographic analysis established that the capillary part of capillary and Kapillarlumineszenz analysis. After his early death in 1935, his two sons, the doctor and pharmacist Willmar as well as the pharmacist and business graduate Wolfgang Schwabe, took over the management of the company until 1946 and began in 1940 with the development of medicinal herbal medicines in parallel to homeopathic medicines. In 1943, the first hawthorn preparation was introduced to improve declining heart function .
1946–1976: expropriation and relocation to Karlsruhe
After World War II there was in terms of reparations for the expropriation of the company in the Soviet occupation zone . The Schwabe family moved to Karlsruhe in 1946 in the American zone of occupation , where they found suitable rooms for the restart on the Gritzner company premises and practically managed and expanded their remaining company from nothing. Karlsruhe was not unknown to the Schwabes, because a distribution warehouse had long been located here, and Wolfgang had also studied in Freiburg im Breisgau . In the new plant in the Durlach district , research activities were newly initiated and continuously expanded. The positive development of the company soon made it necessary to expand the premises. In 1951 the first new building, the administration building with gate , was built on today's company premises . In line with the continuous growth of the company, construction activity continued in the following decades.
In 1961, with the establishment of the German Homeopathy Union (DHU) in Karlsruhe, the two work areas homeopathy and phytopharmaceuticals were separated. From then on, DHU took over the development, manufacture and sale of homeopathic medicines, while the Schwabe company concentrated entirely on the research and development of phytopharmaceuticals. These should meet the standards of international pharmaceutical authorities with regard to the technical data on quality and manufacture as well as pharmacological and clinical documentation .
In 1965, the first was Ginkgo biloba - preparation introduced. It contained the special Ginkgo extract EGb 761 developed and patented by Schwabe. The ginkgo preparation tebonin with the ingredient bilobalide is still the best-selling herbal medicine today .
1976 – today: rise to a global corporation
1976 took over diploma biochemist Klaus-Peter Schwabe and 1977 the business school graduate Wolf-Dietrich Schwabe as managing the company's management. In the same year a warehouse for dried medicinal plants was purchased in Staffort . The area around the hall was leased by the municipality. Eventually a location for the cultivation of domestic medicinal plants developed from it. The warehouse also had a well that was used for the cultivation. In 1978 ginkgo cultures were introduced there.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the company formed into the “Schwabe Group”, which operates worldwide, through company foundings, acquisitions and investments in Germany and abroad. In 1980, the subsidiary Schwabe Extracta GmbH & Co. KG was founded, which today uses state-of-the-art processing systems and special extraction processes to extract active ingredients from medicinal plants for pharmaceutical production. In 1986 the Ettlingen-based company W. Spitzner Medicinal Factory GmbH was taken over. The acquisition of ISO Arzneimittel GmbH & CO followed. KG 1987 from Regensburg .
The following year, today's daughter, Dr. Willmar Schwabe Business Services in Karlsruhe. It was originally called the “Logistik-Zentrum Dr. Willmar Schwabe founded “in order to organize the logistics and IT activities of the German companies in the group centrally and from a single source. While the focus was initially on supporting the national group companies, more and more tasks in the international area were taken on and expanded in the course of the 1990s. The successful organization as an internal service provider was also the inspiration for the further bundling of competencies. In 2011 it was decided to organize the HR department , financial accounting , customer service and purchasing centrally and uniformly for the group companies in Germany and to integrate these administrative units into the Dr. Willmar Schwabe to bundle Business Services.
In 1989, greenhouses were built for the first time in Staffort . In 1993 the ISO company headquarters were relocated to Ettlingen, close to the parent company. Since 2003 food supplements have also been developed and marketed. Schwabe finally incorporated the products of its subsidiary Spitzner at the end of 2012. The marketing was merged in Ettlingen at Spitzner location, distribution was completely outsourced and the partner company OTX Force GmbH transferred from Ettlingen. The Spitzner name disappeared from the market, only production continues today under the brand. The cultivation company in Staffort has been called Terra Medica® since 2014 and is now the most diverse medicinal plant culture in Europe.
Between 2004 and 2016, the group doubled its sales from around 400 million to over 800 million euros.
Today the company is present in over 60 countries around the world.
Group structure
The Schwabe Group consists of 93 companies worldwide , more precisely from a parent company and several subsidiaries as well as partner companies in the form of joint ventures , license partners , plantations and extraction sites . In addition to the Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG in Karlsruhe as the headquarters, there are six other largely independently operating partner and subsidiary companies in the immediate vicinity of the headquarters, three of them in Ettlingen . These are:
- German Homeopathy Union DHU Medicines (DHU), Karlsruhe
- ISO-Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG, Ettlingen
- Dr. Willmar Schwabe Business Services, Karlsruhe
- Schwabe Extracta GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe
- Spitzner GmbH, Ettlingen
- OTX Force GmbH, Ettlingen
Partner and subsidiary companies in Germany
- German Homeopathy Union DHU Medicines (DHU)
- The 100% subsidiary "Deutsche Homöopathie-Union" is responsible for the development, production and sale of homeopathic medicines. It is the largest manufacturer of these in Germany and is one of the three big names in homeopathy worldwide. The DHU has its own medicinal plant cultivation, which is located a short distance from the headquarters in Karlsruhe in Staffort . The managing directors are Peter Braun and Rainer Oschmann. The DHU was created in 1961 from the merger of the earlier competitors Dr. Madaus & Co. and Dr. Willmar Schwabe. This company marriage broke up again in 1969, but the name was retained.
- ISO-Arzneimittel GmbH & Co. KG
- ISO is another homeopathy division of Schwabe. After the company, which was founded in 1923, was acquired in 1987, the company's headquarters were relocated in 1993 from Regensburg to Ettlingen, close to the parent company. The managing director is Uwe Zind.
- Dr. Willmar Schwabe Business Services
- With around 200 employees, "Schwabe Business Services" is an internal service provider responsible for financial accounting , purchasing , information technology , customer service , logistics and personnel for the Schwabe Group in Germany.
- Schwabe Extracta GmbH & Co. KG
- "Schwabe Extracta" is a manufacturer of active ingredients that uses state-of-the-art processing systems and special extraction processes to extract herbal active ingredients from medicinal plants for pharmaceutical production. The company has around 100 employees.
- W. Spitzner Medicines Factory GmbH
- "Spitzner" produces body care products of natural origin for the wellness and sports sector. All Spitzner products are developed and manufactured exclusively in Ettlingen.
- OTX Force GmbH
- As a healthcare company, it has been supporting the marketing of pharmaceutical Schwabe products in the OTC , RX or OTX environment as an exclusive sales partner since the beginning of 2013 . This applies both to the sales processing of the pharmacy market, as well - with a separate line - for the care of house and specialists for the entire Schwabe product portfolio.
Subsidiaries worldwide
In addition to the six partner and subsidiary companies in Germany, Schwabe has 16 other subsidiaries worldwide.
- Europe
- Schwabe Pharma (UK) Ltd. ( Marlow , England)
- DHU Ibérica, SA ( Tarragona , Spain)
- VSM BELGIUM bvba. ( Kontich , Belgium)
- VSM Geneesmiddelen bv ( Alkmaar , Netherlands)
- Schwabe Pharma AG ( Küssnacht am Rigi , Switzerland)
- Loacker Remedia Srl ( Blumau , Italy)
- Austroplant Arzneimittel GmbH ( Vienna , Austria)
- Schwabe Czech Republic sro ( Prague , Czech Republic)
- Schwabe Slovakia sro ( Bratislava , Slovakia)
- Schwabe Hungary Kft ( Budapest , Hungary)
- Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG ( Moscow , Russia)
- North and Central America
- Laboratorios Farmasa, SA de CV ( Mexico City , Mexico)
- Schwabe North America Canada ( Vancouver , Canada)
- Schwabe North America ( Green Bay , United States)
- Asia
- Dr. Willmar Schwabe India Pvt. Ltd. ( Noida , India)
- Schwabe Pharma Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. ( Singapore )
Corporate governance
The Schwabe Group is globally by the Group Executive Team (GET) ( management control). The GET's task is to define the Group's strategy centrally, to ensure the implementation of global goals and to exemplify and demand the corporate values.
- Group Executive Team
- The Schwabe Group's Group Executive Team consists of five members:
- Olaf Schwabe ( Chief Executive Officer )
- Anke Balzer (Chief Commercial Officer) with responsibility for marketing and sales
- Patrick Krauth ( Chief Financial Officer )
- Rainer Oschmann ( Chief Operations Officer )
- Joachim Thole (General Counsel and Head of Global HR) with responsibility for legal , compliance and human resources
Each member of the team is internationally responsible for their area of responsibility. The national responsible for each area of responsibility report to the relevant member of the Group Executive Team .
Locations
Germany
| founding | place | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1865 | Leipzig | ||
| 1926 | Paunsdorf 1 | ||
| 1946 | Durlach 2 | ||
| 1949 | Durlach and Ettlingen 3 | ||
| 1961 | Durlach 4 | ||
| 1976 | Staff location 5 | ||
| 1980 | Durlach 6 | ||
| 1987 | Regensburg 7 | ||
| 1988 | Ettlingen 8 | ||
| 1993 | Ettlingen 9 | ||
| 2012 | Ettlingen 10 | ||
|
1. Change of company headquarters 2. New start 3. Founding company W. Spitzner Arzneimittelabrik 4. Founding company of the German Homeopathic Union 5. Location of pharmaceutical cultures 6. Founding company Schwabe Extracta 7. Founding company ISO Arzneimittel 8. Founding company Dr. Wilmar Schwabe Business Services 9. Change of company headquarters ISO Arzneimittel 10. Founding company OTX Force |
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The initially changing locations were all in or on the edge of the Leipzig inner city ring, which is well connected in terms of transport . The first production facility was on the ground floor of the Centralhalle , An der Pleiße 3 b, today Dittrichring and Gottschedstraße . Business was booming and there was soon insufficient space in the hall, so after a few years the company moved to "Kleine Fleischergasse 23–24". The steady economic upswing of the company and the resulting increasing space requirements led to another change of company headquarters in 1882, so that the company was relocated to Querstraße 5 near Augustusplatz . A four-story building in the Renaissance style with a rear building was available there. The production of medicinal substances and the mail order business continued to grow very quickly, so that in 1926 new factory buildings were built in Paunsdorfer Bahnhofstraße (from 1928 Breitingstraße 54/56, today Elisabeth-Schumacher-Straße), which meant leaving the city center after 60 years. There you had a connection to the Leipzig – Geithain railway line and the Dresden line via the Paunsdorf train station .
After World War II there was in terms of reparations for the expropriation of the company in the Soviet occupation zone . The Schwabe family moved to Karlsruhe in the American zone of occupation in 1946 , from where they continued to manage and expand their remaining company. The new company headquarters was relocated to the immediate vicinity of the Durlach train station, to today's Wilmar-Schwabe-Straße-4, in order to continue to guarantee a close connection to the railway network. Today there is Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG is headquartered and the subsidiary Schwabe Extracta GmbH & Co. KG, founded in 1980.
The German Homeopathy Union (DHU), founded in 1961 for the production of homeopathic medicines, is also located in Durlach, about 2.5 kilometers west of the headquarters. The daughter Dr. Willmar Schwabe Business Services is based. Both are close to the Südtangente , a feeder road to the B 3 with the A5.
With the takeover of the W. Spitzner pharmaceutical factory founded in 1949 in 1986, the production sites in Durlach and Ettlingen also belonged to Schwabe. With the acquisition of ISO Arzneimittel in 1987, another production facility was added with the ISO factory. In 1993 the ISO company headquarters were relocated to Ettlingen. With the merger of Spitzner at the end of 2012, among other things, sales were outsourced and passed to OTX Force, which was founded in Ettlingen in the same year.
In addition, Schwabe has owned a plant for the cultivation of domestic medicinal plants in Staffort since 1976 . The location 13 kilometers north of Karlsruhe became the location because a warehouse for dried medicinal plants was acquired there. The opportunity was used to lease land around the warehouse from the municipality. The warehouse had a well system that could be used for the cultivation. Another advantage was that the area away from traffic and industry lay systems and thus also environmental face score was ideal. The company has been called Terra Medica since 2014 .
Other locations in Europe
Traditionally, the focus of the foreign locations with 11 subsidiaries, 16 license partners, 2 extraction sites and a plantation is in Europe . The subsidiaries in Western Europe include companies in Alkmaar (Netherlands), Kontich (Belgium) and Marlow (England). In the German-speaking area outside of Germany, the company is represented by the Swiss subsidiary Schwabe Pharma AG in Küssnacht am Rigi . The partner companies Omida and Piniol AG, which together form the Schwabe Group Switzerland, are also located there. In Austria, the subsidiary Austroplant Arzneimittel GmbH and partners Dr. Peithner KG and Schwabe Central and Eastern Europe GmbH, all of which are located in the Vienna district of Inzersdorf . With representatives in Prague , Bratislava , Budapest and Moscow , Schwabe also has four subsidiaries in Central and Eastern Europe. In southern Europe there are Schwabe daughters in Blumau (South Tyrol) and in Tarragona in Catalonia .
The license partners are also distributed across Europe. In Northern Europe there are partners in Sweden and Finland , in Eastern Europe in Lithuania , Ukraine and Belarus , in Southern Europe in Spain and Portugal . In the Caucasus region there are cooperation partners in Georgia , Armenia and Azerbaijan as well as in Turkey . Most of the partners are based in Southeastern Europe in Croatia , Serbia , Romania and Bulgaria . One partner is based in France .
Schwabe also runs a ginkgo plantation in the Bordeaux wine-growing region and operates extraction sites in Switzerland and Cork (Ireland).
North America
The United States (USA) has developed into one of the most important foreign markets . Schwabe is represented there with its subsidiary Schwabe North America in Green Bay . In it are Nature's Way Products, Inc. and Enzymatic Therapy, Inc. integrated. The latter is also based there. The seat of the Nature's Way is located in Springville . There is also a branch in Lehi . There is also a large ginkgo plantation in Columbia, South Carolina. In addition to the USA location, there is also a Schwabe subsidiary in Canada , such as Schwabe North America Canada and Nature's Way Canada in Vancouver .
Latin America
Alongside Europe, South and Central America have also played an important role for a long time . Schwabe is represented by a total of 22 companies in these regions, including a subsidiary in Mexico City , more precisely in Colonia del Valle , one of the largest and most respected residential districts in the metropolitan region . The remaining locations are license partners, one is also represented in Mexico . In Central America there is one partner each in Costa Rica , El Salvador , Honduras , Nicaragua and Panama . In South America in the Andean region (two in Colombia and Venezuela , one each in Bolivia , Ecuador and Peru ). There is also a partner company in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro . In the southern cone there are further branches in Argentina , Chile , Paraguay and Uruguay , with the focus here on two companies in the province of Buenos Aires . Schwabe is also represented in the Caribbean with a partner in the Dominican Republic .
Africa and Middle East
In Africa is for the Group of South Africa is of particular importance, because here the most important for the company Cape - geranium are grown in plantations. In addition, a license partner is based in Cairo (Egypt). In the Middle East , partners are found in Lebanon , Jordan , Syria and the United Arab Emirates . Due to the civil war in Syria , the situation around the partner company there is unclear.
Asia and Oceania
The Schwabe Group is also extremely active in Asia and Oceania . In total, the group has two subsidiaries, 17 license partners and a plantation in the region. Southeast Asia in particular has long played an important role. There is a subsidiary in Singapore . There are five other partners in Jakarta (Indonesia), Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) and Manila (Philippines), as well as Bangkok (Thailand) and Vietnam . In South Asia , the group is represented by a subsidiary in the north Indian industrial city of Noida and with a partner in neighboring Pakistan to the west . In the East Asian region there are partners in Tokyo (Japan), Seoul (South Korea) and Taiwan , as well as a ginkgo plantation in China and another partner company in Guangzhou . Schwabe is represented with another five branches throughout Central Asia , with partners in Nur-Sultan (Astana until 2019) (Kazakhstan), Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan , as well as Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan . Two other locations are in Brisbane (Australia) and New Zealand .
Successor companies in the GDR and their further development
From the 1926 built facility in Leipzig Paunsdorf was 1952, the VEB Homöopharm - Dr. Willmar Schwabe, from 1957 VEB Leipziger Arzneimittelwerk. This was converted in 1990 into Leipziger Arzneimittelwerk GmbH, which in turn was taken over in 2000 by Riemser Arzneimittel AG, based in Greifswald , and sold on to the Prange Group in 2013.
Patent dispute
In March 2008 an international action alliance was composed of a local South African community, competitors and several non-governmental organizations (NGO) appeal against a patent charged by Schwabe, consisting of the Cape - Geranium an extract for the common cold medium "Umckaloabo®" produces. The patent protects the manufacturing process of a Pelargonium sidoides root extract, which is produced by extracting with ethanol and is used as an active ingredient against respiratory infections . The manufacturing process for this extract was developed by Schwabe. With a patent on the manufacturing process registered in September 2002 and granted in June 2007, Schwabe secured Europe-wide protection for the manufacture and sale of the extract until 2022.
While the competitors saw technical patenting criteria as not being met, the NGOs put forward ethical reasons for their objection. According to the Evangelical Development Service (EED), residents of Lesotho and the city of Alice traditionally produce tinctures against respiratory infections and tuberculosis from the roots of the species Pelargonium sidoides, which grows there, and accused the company of “illegitimate and illegal monopolization of a genetic resource from southern Africa and the traditional Knowledge ”. Based on this knowledge, Schwabe developed the remedy Umckaloabo® and sells it successfully for the treatment of acute bronchitis , coughs , colds and other respiratory ailments . In this way, the company is making money from the traditional knowledge of South Africans without giving them an adequate share in the profits, criticizes the action alliance. According to Schwabe, the patented extraction process at Umckaloabo®, which includes up to 20 highly technical steps, differs completely from the traditional production of the tincture, whereby certain active ingredients can be extracted and others filtered out, thus obtaining a specific composition of ingredients. This could increase the effectiveness and tolerance. In addition, since its introduction at the beginning of the 20th century by the English major Charles H. Stevens, who previously suffered from tuberculosis and was successfully treated, Pelargonium extracts have been used in Europe for more than 100 years.
The European Patent Office finally revoked the company's patent from June 2007 in January 2010. The patent office justified the revocation by stating that the process for extracting the active ingredients was not an invention from a patent point of view , since the technology was already "sufficiently known" has been. However, the patent office did not agree to the charge of “illegitimate and illegal monopoly”. The lawsuit, which was preceded by the opposition to the patent in 2008, was supported not only by competitors and EED, but also by the organization Declaration of Bern and the African Center for Biosafety . The latter rated the decision as a great "success in the fight against biopiracy ".
Schwabe initially announced that he would lodge a complaint against the decision and saw the problem in very technical details, but declared in April 2010 that he would not appeal against the judgment. This was justified with the wish not to become the plaything of a fundamental discussion that cannot be resolved by Schwabe in the area of tension between the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and patent law , which partly contradict each other, although the patent is ethically and legally correct.
In addition, Schwabe waived five out of seven patents for the production of Umckaloabo®. With the waiver, Schwabe wanted to get rid of the charge of biopiracy and to demonstrate that it takes a discussion seriously. The two remaining patents protect the stabilization of the liquid dosage form and the production of the special extract EPs 7630®. From the company's point of view, this is technical know-how and thus an inventive contribution. At the same time, the company announced that it would be even more oriented towards the biodiversity convention , which among other things provides for the participation of the local communities in South Africa in the profits. In addition to so-called benefit-sharing agreements , they want to get more involved in the social field, in the form of a foundation that was established in 2010. The first project to a scout center in the eastern province of Mpumalanga to be built. In addition, they want to commit themselves more to the conservation of the wild stocks of the plant as well as the sustainable promotion of the developing country.
The groundbreaking ceremony of the Scout center was made in 2010 in Nelspruit ; it opened two years later. This was followed by other children's aid projects by the Umckaloabo Foundation, which is supported by, among others, Axel Milberg and the art historian, designer and painter and his wife Judith. In addition, the company now works with local authorities and organizations to monitor stocks, train collectors and, for example, is involved in health education. Schwabe is currently the only company with an official collective license in South Africa and Lesotho. In addition, the company has successfully implemented the Nagoya Protocol .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Finance : CFO reports: HSH Nordbank, DER Touristik, Voith
- ↑ a b schwabe.de: Welcome to Dr. Willmar Schwabe
- ↑ apotheke-adhoc.de: APOTHEKE ADHOC: The turning point in Schwabe
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r schwabe.de: Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG - a family company with tradition! How it all started ...
- ↑ a b c schwabe.de: Dr. Willmar Schwabe - data and facts
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u leipzig-lese.de: Dr. Willmar Schwabe - from pharmacist to major global entrepreneur
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m leipzig-lese.de: The first homeopathic pharmacies in Leipzig
- ↑ a b dhu-globuli.de: 150 years Globuli Original DHU - time to say thank you!
- ↑ a b c lz-schwabe.de: 60 years loyal to the Karlsruhe location - company chronicle Dr. Willmar Schwabe Arzneimittel ( Memento of the original from June 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d e pressreader.com: “We remain loyal to Karlsruhe” - 150 years of pharmaceuticals by Willmar Schwabe
- ↑ a b c d e apotheke-adhoc.de: Schwabe stamps Spitzner in ( memento of the original from September 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c d iso-arzneimittel.de: History of ISO
- ↑ a b Chamber of Commerce and Industry : Company Anniversaries - 25 Years of Schwabe Business Services ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ Pharmaceutical newspaper : Schwabe is rebuilding
- ↑ a b German Homeopathy Union : About us - The DHU today
- ↑ a b otx-force.de: OTX Force - About us
- ↑ a b c d e schwabe.de: Worldwide specialist for phytopharmaceuticals
- ↑ a b c d e schwabe.de: Management team of the Dr. Willmar Schwabe
- ↑ a b terramedica.de: Staffort becomes Terra Medica®
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p schwabepharma.com: Schwabe World-wide (English)
- ↑ schwabepharma.com: Schwabe Group Switzerland
- ↑ austroplant.at: Who we are
- ^ A b Stephan Brown: Ginkgo Biloba: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin, A-231. Sports Publishing LLC, United States 2000, ISBN 1-58017-280-6 , p. 13.
- ↑ Teri A Vanbeek: Ginkgo Biloba. Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam 2000, ISBN 90-5702-488-8 , p. 114.
- ↑ a b enzymatictherapy.com: Schwabe, World Leader in Herbal Manufacturing Will Acquire Enzymatic Therapy through Nature's Way Holding, Inc (English)
- ↑ naturesway.com: Contact Us (English)
- ↑ natureswaycanada.ca: Nature's Way Canada (English)
- ↑ LAW website
- ↑ Press release of the Evangelical Development Service: A rural community in South Africa is fighting against pelargonium patents and biopiracy ( memento of the original from May 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , dated May 7, 2008.
- ↑ European Patent Office revokes Pelargonium patent . In: Entwicklungspolitikonline, accessed on January 26, 2010
- ↑ Patent Office revokes Umckaloabo patent . In: stern.de, accessed on January 28, 2010
- ↑ Umckaloabo® manufacturer reacts by renouncing the patent ( memento of the original from November 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , DAZ.online, April 27, 2010.
- ↑ Umckaloabo® in discussion - current location and sustainable perspectives ( memento of the original from March 19, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Press release of April 27, 2010.
Web links
- Official website of the Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG
- ka-news on the 60th anniversary of Dr. Willmar Schwabe GmbH & Co. KG at the Karlsruhe-Durlach location
Coordinates: 49 ° 0 ′ 5.2 " N , 8 ° 27 ′ 53.4" E