Pharmacia
| Pharmacia | |
|---|---|
| legal form | Corporation |
| founding | 1911 |
| resolution | 2002 |
| Seat | Uppsala |
| management | Gunnar Wessman ( Managing Director ) |
| Number of employees | 4,000 (1996) |
| Branch | Pharmaceuticals , biotechnology |
Pharmacia was a pharmaceutical and biotechnology company in Sweden and a pioneer in the field of gel filtration . The company became known especially through the brand name Sephadex .
history
Pharmacia was founded in Stockholm in 1911 by the pharmacist Gustaf Felix Grönfeldt . The company name goes back to the Greek word φαρμακεία pharmakeia , which means medical .
In the early days, most of the profit was made with the phospho-energon agent . During the Second World War , the Swedish chemist Björn Ingelman , an assistant to Arne Tiselius , studied various uses of dextran at Uppsala University . Together with Anders Grönwall, he discovered the possibility of using dextran as a blood plasma substitute , which was an important development, especially in times of war. The CEO Elis Göth of the then still small company Pharmacia showed great interest in the discovery. Five years later, Macrodex, a dextran solution, was introduced as a product. Dextran-based products now played a very important role in the further expansion of Pharmacia.
In 1951 the company headquarters was relocated to Uppsala in order to be closer to the cooperation partners. At the same time, Ingelman became head of research. In 1959, Pharmacia pioneered the gel filtration field with Sephadex . In 1967, the subsidiary Pharmacia Fine Chemicals was founded in Uppsala, which was renamed Pharmacia Biotech in 1986 . In the 1990s, Pharmacia merged with Kabi Vitrum to form Kabi Pharmacia . Kabi was later spun off again and replaced by Upjohn in 1995 . The new company headquarters was in London . In 1996 Pharmacia was one of the largest private employers in Uppsala with 4,000 employees.
The biotechnology department Pharmacia Biotech merged with Amersham Life Science in 1997 and took over the name Amersham Pharmacia Biotech . When Pharmacia & Upjohn sold their shares in Amersham Pharmacia Biotech to Amersham, the company was renamed Amersham Biosciences in 2001 . After Pharmacia & Upjohn had sold their food division to Fresenius in 1999 , Pharmacia & Upjohn merged with Monsanto Company in 2000 to form Pharmacia Corporation . The original Stockholm part of Pharmacia came into the possession of the Biovitrum company in 2001 , which in turn sold its plasma products division to Octapharma in 2002 . The agricultural-chemical department under the name Monsanto was also sold again in 2002, but the pharmaceutical department of the Searle company was retained . In July 2002, Pharmacia Corporation was acquired by Pfizer .
GE Healthcare took over the former subsidiary Amersham Biosciences in 2004 . The Life Science division of GE Healthcare , however, kept its headquarters in Uppsala. Pharmacia's allergy diagnostics division, also based in Uppsala, was sold as Pharmacia Diagnostic in 2004 . Later that year, the ophthalmology division established in Uppsala was also sold to Advanced Medical Optics . The Indian company Kemwell acquired the remains of Pharmacia in Uppsala in 2006. On January 16, 2006, Pharmacia Diagnostic was renamed Phadia . This also marked the end of the Pharmacia brand.
The remaining part of the Pharmacia company in Stockholm was relocated to Belgium in 2008 . The facilities in Strängnäs , Sweden are currently being expanded to produce Genotropin , a growth hormone.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Ann-Charlotte Fridh: The Exit of Pharmacia and Regional Growth . In: The Ratio Institute (Ed.): Ratio Working Papers . No. 22 , 2003 ( repec.org ).
- ↑ Krig, socker och samarbete lade ground till företag i världsklass. (German: "War, sugar and cooperation starts the foundation of a world-class company"). In: Pharma-industri.se. Archived from the original on February 24, 2012 ; Retrieved July 14, 2010 (Swedish).