LEO Pharma

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LEO Pharma A / S
legal form Corporation
founding 1908
Seat Ballerup, Denmark
management Gitte Aabo, President and CEO
Number of employees > 3,000
sales EUR 1,068 million (2014)
Branch drug
Website leo-pharma.com

Founded in 1908 and headquartered in Ballerup , Denmark , LEO Pharma develops and markets products in the fields of dermatology , bone metabolism and coagulation . The company is 100% involved in a private foundation.

history

1908-1920

In 1620 Christian IV , King of Denmark and Norway from 1588 to 1648, appointed the original “Löwen Apotheke” (Love Apotek) in Copenhagen to be the court pharmacy. The pharmacists A. Kongsted and A. Antons bought the "Löwen Apotheke" in 1908 and founded "Kobenhavns Loveapoteks kemiske factory", today LEO Pharma. The founding idea of ​​Kongsteds and Anton was the use of Danish raw materials and product standardization, which should guarantee an identical effect and properties of the products, regardless of which batch they came from. Two laboratories were set up in the “Löwen Apotheke” - one bacteriological and one pharmacological. The production of sterile and standardized preparations began in these premises. In addition, an inhalatorium was set up for patients with respiratory diseases.

In 1910 the company had an annual turnover of 12,000 DKK with a total of three employees . In 1912 albyl ( acetylsalicylic acid ) came on the market, the pain reliever of choice in Denmark for many years . After another two years, the first branch called LEO Helsingborg was founded in Sweden in 1914 . In 1917 Kongsted finally sold his shares in Antons. In the same year, Dr. Marie Krogh Digitalis . The marketed product Digisolvin LEO was the first Danish pharmaceutical to be exported. On April 11, 1920, Antons was killed in a traffic accident and Kongsted bought LEO back.

1920-1960

In 1923 Kongsted took using August Krogh and Hans Christian Hagedorn , the insulin production in Denmark and transferred this finally in 1925 the independent Nordisk Insulin Foundation. LEO now has over 80 employees and an annual turnover of one million DKK. Due to the enormous growth of the factory, Kongsted decided in 1926 to move to Bronshojvej, on the outskirts of Copenhagen , where he acquired a factory with large and very well-equipped rooms. There, LEO developed a number of hormone products and a process for the extraction of heparin .

Kongsted died on April 24, 1939 from a serious flu. His son-in-law Knud Abildgaard took over the management of LEO from then on, bought the factory from the inheritance and thus became the factory owner.

The LEO price list now includes around 230 branded products, one of which was Heparin LEO , which came on the market in 1940. During World War II , in 1943, LEO became the first company to manufacture penicillin outside the UK and USA . Penicillin LEO came onto the market in 1945 . Penicillin production facilities have been built under license in Italy , Spain and France and sales have now reached 11 million DKK. As a result of steady growth, LEO relocated the entire production to Ballerup between 1949 and 1959 and began to export pharmaceutical products. Furthermore, LEO founded branches for production and sales in the Netherlands and Ireland in 1958 and in France in 1959. Sales offices were established in Greece in 1958 and in the United Kingdom (LEO UK) in 1960. The number of employees rose to more than 1000 people.

1960-1990

In 1962 the “revolutionary” product Fucidine ( fusidic acid ) was developed and brought onto the market. At the same time, LEO set up another sales organization in Norway , followed in 1963 by Lövens Läkemedel in Sweden and in 1967 by LEO Belgium.

In 1971, Pondocillin ( pivampicillin ) came onto the market as a representative of a new generation of penicillins, followed in 1978 by Selexid ( Pivmecillinam ). The diuretic Burinex ( bumetanide ) was introduced in 1973, in the same year LEO began researching vitamin D analogues. In 1978 EinsAlpha ( alfacalcidol ) came onto the market.

In 1983 the promise made by Knud Abildgaard in 1970 was put into practice: the LEO Foundation was established. With the establishment of LEO Canada in 1984, the number of employees worldwide increased to 2,500 and the current annual turnover is 1.14 billion DKK. In 1986 Dr. Knud Abildgaard and the company LEO was taken over by the LEO Foundation, which was founded by Abildgaard just 3 years earlier. Fucithalmic came onto the market in the same year .

1990-2009

In 1990 the sales branch LEO Finland was founded. Less than a year later, LEO's sales organization in Switzerland began operations. As a consequence of the good research work in relation to vitamin D analogues and the knowledge generated from them, LEO introduced the product Daivonex / Dovonex ( calcipotriol ) in 1991 and thus started a new era in the field of topical treatment of psoriasis . In the same year, the naturally enzymatically produced low molecular weight heparin innohep ( tinzaparin ) came onto the market.

The German branch of LEO Pharma (sales) was founded in 1992. In the meantime (1994) the number of employees worldwide was more than 3000, of which 1250 were employed at the Danish headquarters in Ballerup. There was also an increase in annual sales to DKK 2.6 billion.

In 1998 LEO founded further sales organizations in Austria and Portugal. In 1999, a research and development complex with the most modern facilities was built in Ballerup on an area of ​​over 25,000 m². Shortly thereafter, LEO received the King Frederik IX ’s Award for excellent export performance.

In 2001 the next generation of psoriasis treatment, Daivobet / Dovobet ( calcipotriol / betamethasone ), was presented on the Danish market, recognized by the EU and also received the Product Award 2003 from the Danish industry association Dansk Industri.

In 2002 the Lovens kemiske factory changed its name to LEO Pharma and introduced a new slogan: "research based, people driven".

In 2005, Daivobet was approved in the USA and marketed under the name Taclonex . Meanwhile the annual turnover reached 4.86 billion DKK.

On January 1st, 2008, in the 100th birthday year of LEO, Gitte P. Aabo took up the office as CEO and President of LEO Pharma. In the same year the new preparation Xamiol came onto the market.

The LEO Foundation

The LEO Foundation is an independent, private institution whose aim is to continue the LEO Pharma Group. Since 1986 LEO has been fully owned by the LEO Foundation and therefore has no external shareholders. August Kongsted founded LEO in Denmark in 1908 - the company was owned by his heirs for 75 years.

In 1983, Dr. Knud Abildgaard and his wife Gertrud Abildgaard, the LEO Foundation. The foundation ensures that all of the company's profits stay with LEO and are invested in future research and development of new drugs.

The LEO research foundation

In addition to the LEO Foundation, there is a second, older foundation that is very closely linked to the history of LEO Pharma: The LEO Research Foundation. The LEO Research Foundation in Denmark (formerly known as "Lovens Kemiske Fabriks Forskningsfond") is completely separate from the LEO Foundation and also has its own board of directors. The LEO Research Foundation was set up in 1947 by the then owner of LEO Pharma, Knud Abildgaard.

The LEO logo had been formally in existence since 1911 when it was registered as the company's trademark in 1956. But lions played a role in the company's history long before that, so the Assyrian lion in the logo dates back to 600 BC. Christ back.

In 1620, the first officially licensed pharmacy, the Löwen Apotheke, was founded in Copenhagen. The pharmacy adopted the lion as its symbol. When the pharmacy was being renovated in 1906, the then pharmacists commissioned Clausen and Rink, Rink's sister, Anna Rink, to design the logo. Anna Rink got her inspiration from a Persian bas-relief from the year 500 BC. Christ on display in the Louvre in Paris . This relief was excavated from the Darius Palace in southwest Persia and bore numerous lions very similar to those found in 600 BC. Christ-built palace of Nebuchadnezzar were found in Babylon .

The Rink logo was retained when pharmacists Kongsted and Antons bought the pharmacy in 1908.

Production facilities and branches

LEO is one of the largest manufacturers of heparin worldwide and has one of the most modern production facilities for the production of deltanoids.

More than 900 people are employed in the five production plants in Denmark, France and Ireland. The pharmaceutical production facilities are subject to international quality assurance guidelines. Some of the manufacturing facilities have been certified by the US Federal Drug Administration ( FDA ) to allow pharmaceuticals to be exported to the US. In all areas, production works in close cooperation with the development departments.

LEO has positioned subsidiaries and regional offices worldwide.

Individual evidence

  1. a b LEO Pharma annual financial statements for 2008 with record results. Finanztreff, March 27, 2009, accessed April 20, 2009 .
  2. LEO Pharma Denmark. (PDF (1 page, 817 kB)) (No longer available online.) Faubel, archived from the original on March 4, 2016 ; Retrieved April 17, 2009 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.faubel.de
  3. a b The LEO Foundation. LEO Pharma, archived from the original on September 7, 2010 ; Retrieved April 18, 2009 .
  4. production. LEO Pharma, archived from the original on May 4, 2007 ; Retrieved April 18, 2009 .

literature

  • Schroder, Kirkegaard, Homstad: LEO Pharma 1908-2008 . Ed .: LEO Pharma. Ballerup 2008, ISBN 978-87-89468-80-8 .

Web links