menarini 125 anniversary edition€¦ · page 3 the finishing touches to the buil-ding of the...

2011

2011 is an important milestone for the Menarini Group as this is the year of their 125th Anniversary. It was in the year 1886 that Dr. Ar-chimede Menarini opened up his very first pharmacy - the “Mena-rini International Pharmacy” - at number 4, Via Calabritto, Naples. From the very beginning it seemed as if he wanted to pave the way to what would have become the mis-sion of the company he founded.

Most of the “remedies and me-dications” (as they were called in those days) were prepared by the chemist himself, following the indications and instructions gi-ven by both the patients’ doctors and the “Farmacopea Ufficiale del Regno d’Italia” (“The Official Pharmacopeia for the Kingdom of Italy”), a tome published by the Mi-nistry of Health containing all the procedures and requirements on how compound medicines should be prepared.

WHAT ELSE HAPPENED IN THE YEAR 1886 ?• 25th Anniversary of the Kingdom of Italy. • The King of Italy is Umberto I of Savoy and 16 years have gone by since the capital city was moved from Florence to Rome.• The Italian population reaches 31 million people (approximately half of what it is today). • Heinrich Hertz discovers electromagnetic waves, a discovery which will eventually lead to the invention of the radio a few years later.• The children’s novel “Heart” (“Cuore”) by Italian author Edmondo De Amicis is issued.• The most popular beverage of all time, Coca Cola, is invented. • The US President Grover Cleveland presides over the dedication ceremony for the Statue of Liberty in the Harbour of New York.• Karl Benz patents the first automobile.

Metarsile was a tonic made with methylarsinate iron phos-phate. Available as a syrup or to be administered as a hypo-dermic injection. Metarsile continued to be manufactured right up until the 1960s and was, as the advertisement sta-ted at that time, a tonic “safe for both children and adults and can be bought at the chemist’s for just 3 Lira a bottle”.

JANUARY 2011

Special Edition

Menarini 125th Anniversary Edition

CAMPO DI MARTE The area in which the Menari-ni premises can still be found today was called “Campo di Marte” which got its name from the area used for the military manoeuvres of the troops who had built a shoo-ting range there along with a deposit for munitions. Florence’s very first airport was built on the outskirts of the city in the vast fields of Campo di Marte, and where, just like today, the tents of visiting circuses were mounted. Even the roadshow of William Frederick Cody (commonly known as Buffalo Bill) chose the area to set up his famous Wild West show with genuine red indians, hundreds of actors, horse-drawn stageco-aches, and prairie wildlife, creating the illusion of being back in the adventurous Far West. The stadium, on the other hand, home to the local football team ‘Fiorentina’, was built later on and opened with a match between the home team and Asmira-Wacker (final score one-nil for the home team) on the 13th September 1931.

Special EditionJANUARY 2011

Alongside his production of galenic preparations, Archimede Menarini soon branched out and started up the production and sale of medi-cinal products under his very own label. His first own-brand medicine was Metarsile, a tonic which rapi-dly became a well known product, highly appreciated by the public at large - not only in the immediate vicinity but all over Italy - closely followed on by Euzymina, a treat-ment for those suffering from dige-stive disorders.

Production soon got well under way, so much so that Dr. Menarini decided to move northwards, aban-doning his career as a ‘simple’ che-mist and dedicating all his time and energy to pharmaceutical research and the manufacture of medicinal products. The city he chose was Florence, mainly due to the fact that there were numerous glassworks in and around the city which could provide him with a rapid and con-stant supply of bottles and vials for his products. The new factory was built on the outskirts of the city in an area called “Campo di Marte”, the very same area where Menarini can be found today.

Euzymina is a solution made with digesti-ve enzymes and lecithin which can be used as an adjuvant treatment for the digestion. Euzymina was the longest-living product Menarini has marketed up to date.

Bottling of Metarsile

The finishing touches to the buil-ding of the Menarini factory were made on the eve of the 1st World War and the actual building was opened in 1915. The opening of both the factory and the road onto which it overlooked came almost at the same time. The road was built to allow both pedestrians and traffic to pass from the church of the Seven Saints (Sette Santi), which had also just been built right next to the Convent of the religious Order of the Sister Servants of Mary, to Via Campo d’Arrigo which ran parallel to the railway. The Menarini factory was a typical industrial building of its time with a facade overlooking the main street, which was, up until 1934, known as Via San Gervasio (later to become Via dei Sette Santi).The offices and the main entrance were accessible from number 3, just like they are today, whilst the production areas could be reached through the side doors.


PRODUCTIONThe production methods of the time were mostly manual, but as you can see from the titles of the photos taken back then, our colleagues of yesteryear were proud to have been able to produce a respectable 10.000 bottles of Metarsile a day and 50.000 bottles of Euzymina a week. Today Menarini’s produc-tion facilities are divided up into 12 separate production sites in both Italy and abroad: two in Florence, Pisa, L’Aquila, Lo-magna (Lecco), Barcelona, two in Berlin, Dresden, Shannon, Istanbul and Guatemala City. In order to satisfy the growing demand in East Europe, a new production plant in Kaluga (Russia) is currently under construction. In the Menarini pro-duction plants dotted around the globe today, more than 600 million boxes are manufactured per year.

One of the first advertisements, dating back to the beginning of the last century

View of the Premises in Florence

The room used for filling vials with Dr. G. Marcacci’s pneumatic machinery which could turn out 50.000 vials a day.


Numerous products, such as Gli-cocinnamina, Chinarsile, Emodina, Siconina, Calcinal, and Oleofosfi-na, to name just a few, were de-veloped and manufactured in the new Florentine premises and soon followed on from Metarsile and Eu-zymina. During the 2nd World War, Mena-rini produced medicinal products for the troops and, luckily, the fac-tory was spared by the bombings which hit the railway junction at Campo di Marte. The site hit by the bombs closest to the factory - luckily without victims - was the cloister of the church, just a few yards away from Menari-ni, on the 23rd of March 1944.Malesci, another Florentine histori-cal pharmaceutical company, which became a member of the Menarini Group in 1978, was, however, to suffer a very different fate.

MALESCI AND L’AQUILA:birds of a feather

In 1850, Dr. Pietro Malesci, chemist and pharmacist, opened his “Drug store and Chemist’s” in the heart of the city centre in Florence, in Borgo SS Apostoli. In 1896 the “Officina Far-maceutica” was opened in a building next to the old shop. Once again the increase in demand led to the need to build new premises and Malesci also opted for the Campo di Marte area. Unfortunately the factory was severe-ly damaged by the heavy bombing of 25th September 1944 which caused the death of 215 people. Malesci’s pro-duction subsequently went back to their old premises and a new post-war factory was built and opened near the Cascine park. Tragedy struck Malesci a second time though when, due to its proximity to the Arno river, both the premises and the entire city of Floren-ce were flooded in November 1966.The chronicles of that time reported how Malesci employees pulled toge-ther to free the laboratories and pro-duction areas of all the mud and silt left by the floods, allowing the entire company to start up again in as short a time as possibile. History repeated itself some 43 years later when the staff members at the L’Aquila pro-duction site were also put to the test but who, in record time, were able to get production back on track after the disastrous earthquake which hit the Abruzzo region in in the year 2009.

Air raid on Campo di Marte seen from Piazzale Michelangelo

The aftermath of the 1966 flood

The effects of the 2009 earthquake

Machine room for the production of pills and tablets

Sealing vials by hand

RESEARCHIn 1978 Menarini employed just 11 people in small laboratori-es in Florence to carry out its Research and Development ac-tivities. Today the Group’s Research projects are divided up amongst several research centres located in Florence, Pomezia (Rome), Lomagna ( Lecco), Pisa, Barcelona and Berlin, cove-ring major therapeutic areas such as cardiovascular conditions, oncology, pain, inflammation and asthma.

After the restart of activites during the post-war years, with the en-trance of Dr. Alberto Aleotti, who took over the directorship of the company in 1964, a period of great development began and the inter-national expansion got underway with the opening of the first affiliate in Barcelona, Spain: the “Laborato-rios Menarini”.

Despite his young age, Dr. Aleotti had already gained a vast experien-ce in the management of complex business organisations in the Emi-lia region of Italy, and immediately foresaw that one of the greatest hindrances to the development of the Italian pharmaceutical industry would have been the impossibility to patent drugs. This made investing in research during a period of great develop-ment quite uneconomic for Italian companies, and Italy ran the risk of falling behind other developed countries.Dr. Aleotti was adamant that Italian pharmaceutical industries should have been allowed to patent their drugs and the battle he undertook to accomplish this came to fruition in 1978 when the ban on patenting drugs and medicinal products was lifted. The time was right for Italian com-panies to start investing in rese-arch, even if somewhat in delay with respect to other European countries.


Taking into account the ex-tremely long time it takes to carry out pharmaceutical research, Menarini, from the end of the 1970’s onwards, undertook a number of co-operations with the largest multinational pharmaceuti-cal companies, establishing important partnership agre-ements, and making the most innovative and effec-tive treatments developed in America, Germany, England and Japan, available to the public.

The Menarini Biotech Campus in Pomezia (Rome)


GUIDOTTI The company was ope-ned in the centre of the city of Pisa in 1914 by Luigi Guidotti. In the period between the two wars, Guidotti grew and developed from being a small scale la-boratory into a modern company, specialised in the manufacture of basic amino acids such as L-tryptophan and L-histidine. At the end of the 50’s a second production plant was opened on the outskirts of Pisa, La Vettola, whilst the head office remained in the original building in Via Trieste up until 2001, after which both the offices and production departments also moved to the new premises in La Vettola.

In parallel with the develop-ment of the research activities during the 70’s and 80’s, Me-narini consolidated it’s presen-ce on the domestic market by taking over four medium-sized pharmaceutical companies: the Florence-based F.I.R.M.A. and MALESCI, and, in 1983, the Milanese company, LUSO-FARMACO, which celebrates its 60th Anniversary this year. In 1983 yet another historical company was welcomed into the Menarini Group, GUIDOTTI of Pisa.

BERLIN-CHEMIEBerlin Chemie was founded as a che-mical laboratory in Berlin Adlershof by the Kahlbaum family in the year 1890.In 1927 the “C.A.F. Kahlbaum Che-mische Fabriken GmbH” was merged with Shering AG to form the Shering Kahlbaum AG, a company involved in research and development for the pharmaceutical sector. After the second World War, the company was taken under State control and given the name of “VEB Berlin Chemie”, rapidly becoming one of the most important pharmaceutical compa-nies in the DDR with a presence in the USSR, Eastern Europe and Asia. From 1992, Berlin Chemie AG is part of the Menarini Group and today Berlin Chemie-Menarini is active in more than 30 countries and employs people of more than 70 different nationalities. Amongst the ranks of current employees working in the Berlin plant, there are the descendants of some of the chemists who worked on building up the Kahlbaum Chemische at the end of the 19th century: 5 generations all working for the same company!


1886 Archimede Menarini opens the “Menarini International Pharmacy” in Naples

1890 The “C.A.F. Kahlbaum Chemische Fabriken GmbH” is established, later to become Berlin-Chemie

1896 Piero Malesci opens his ”Officina Farmaceutica Malesci” in the centre of Florence

1903 Ibrahim Etem Ulagay opens the “Ibrahim Etem Ulagay Ilaç Sanayii” in Istanbul, Turkey

1914 Guidotti in Pisa opens

1915 Menarini opens the doors of its factory in Florence

1933 F.I.R.M.A (acronym which stands for “Fabbrica Italiana Ritrovati Medicinali & Affini”) opens

1944 The premises which house Malesci are devastated by bombs

1957 The first issue of the “Minuti Menarini” magazine is published and distributed

1964 Alberto Aleotti takes the reigns of the company and becomes the Managing Director of Menarini Pharmaceuticals

1965 The process of internationalisation gets underway with the Laboratorios Menarini in Barcelona

1966 The river Arno floods Florence yet Malesci re-opens in just a few weeks

1976 The Fondazione Internazionale Menarini (Menarini International Foundation) is set up

1976 Menarini Diagnostics is opened

1977 The first co-operations with major multinationals are established

1978 Malesci becomes part of the Menarini Group

1978 The ban on patenting drugs and medicinal products is lifted

1982 The first Menarini affiliate in Central America is opened

1983 Lusofarmaco and Guidotti become part of the Menarini Group

1984 F.I.R.M.A. is incorporated into the Menarini Group

1987 The R.T.C., Research Toxicology Centre in Pomezia (Rome) is opened

1992 Berlin Chemie becomes part of the Menarini Group and the expansion into Centre and Eastern Europe begins

1992 Menarini France starts its activities

1992 Menarini Biotech in Pomezia, Rome opens

1993 The production plant in L’Aquila opens

1994 Menarini opens in India by entering into a partnership agreement with Raunaq Industries

1994 Menarini OTC opens

2001 IE Ulagay becomes part of the Menarini Group

2001 Menarini’s Argentinean affiliate opens its doors

2003 Menarini Biotech starts its activities in Pomezia

2006 Menarini - Von Heyden production plant in Germany increases our production capacity

2008 Menarini Messico opens

2009 L’Aquila production site is severely damaged by earthquake but re-opens in record time

2010 Menarini increases its territorial expansion by distributing one of its products in Australia

2010 Agreement signed for the building of a production plant in Kaluga in the Russian Federation

2011 125th Anniversary of Menarini

Menarini through the years… from 1886 to 2011 …


IE ULAGAYThe history of the “Ibrahim Etem Ulagay Ilaç Sanayii Türk A.Ş.” Company begins in 1903 when Dr. Ibrahim Etem Ulagay opened a laboratory for medical analyses in Instabul in the Gedikpaşa district. Dr. Ulagay’s laboratory became famous all over Turkey for the ac-

curacy of its analyses and even Mustafa Ke-mal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Tur-key, could be counted amongst its patients.Dr. Ulagay had a degree in medicine but his true passion was chemistry, so much so that he took a second degree in the subject. It was this enthusiasm for chemistry that lead him to develop, for the first time in Turkey, in addition to the laboratory analyses already carried out, a range of medicinal products based on vitamins and hormonal treatments, the first production of which dates back to 1909. His range of pro-ducts were a hit and production was rapidly stepped up. Demand became so great that it was necessary to build new premises and in 1924 a new production site was opened in Çemberlitaş, Istanbul. In 1955 IE Ulagay accomplished another great success by beco-ming the first company in Turkey to produce antibiotics, and, in order to cater for their manufacture, yet another new plant was opened in Topkapi, where the company still has its offices. IE Ula-gay has been part of the Menarini Group since 2001.

MENARINI DIAGNOSTICSDating back to the ‘70s Menarini became increasingly aware of the potential for development offered by the diagnostics sector and, following their far-sighted intuition, opened a Diagnostics Division to satisfy the needs of the home market by distributing systems for laboratory analyses. The business took off and the diagnostics sector underwent rapid growth. So much so that at the beginning of the ‘80s a techno-logical department was opened in Via Campo d’Arrigo, just behind Menari-ni Headquarters, in order to carry out the necessary Quality Control activi-

ties as well as set up the very first production unit. Parallel to this, the first affiliates were opened all over Europe, following in the footsteps of their sister companies from the Pharmaceutical division. Since 1984, alongside the business for lab instruments, Menarini decided to appro-ach the market for Home Glucose Testing instruments and systems. Today Menarini Diagnostics has 13 fully owned affiliates all over Eu-rope, employs approximately 900 people and, with an annual turnover of more than 300 million Euro, it is by far the largest Italian company in the Diagnostics market, ranking 13th world-wide.

Dr. Ibrahim Etem Ulagay


After having consolidated it’s pre-sence in both Italy and Spain, Menarini got it’s international expansion underway by opening fully-owned companies in Europe, South America, and Asia. An important step in the Internatio-nalisation process was the acquisi-tion of Berlin Chemie in 1992 which allowed the Group to develop even further and successfully advance into the Central and East European markets where Berlin Chemie-Me-narini is one of the leading compa-nies, ranking number one in Russia and Ukraine and number two in Be-larus and the Baltic States.More recently Menarini acquired IE Ulagay, a pharmaceutical company founded in 1903 in Istanbul by the scientist Dr. Ibrahim Ulagay, one of the largest pharmaceutical compa-nies in Turkey today, and opened an affiliate in Mexico which - after having progressively consolidated its presence in Central and South America from the 80’s onwards - re-presents the first step towards the entrance of Menarini into the terri-tory covered by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).

Advertisements used to promote some of the products marketed by Menarini in the 1950s.


MINUTI MENARINIAt the end of the 1950s, the first copies of the “Minuti Mena-rini” magazine, dedicated exclusively to physicians and doc-tors, started to circulate. During its first few years of publi-cation, the magazine featured not only editorials of general interest, accompanied by pieces of a more ‘technical’ nature, but also gave space to articles based upon topics taken from the world of the fine arts. Much emphasis was given to the letters and enquiries received from members of the medical profession and, thanks to the widespread distribution of the magazine, doctors and physicians could freely exchange opi-nions – a forerunner to today’s internet ‘forums’. Over the years the “Minuti Menarini” magazine, in order to satisfy the increasing demand for updated information put forward by members of the medical profession, has become increasingly more scientific, thanks also to the co-operation established with the “American Family Physician” journal. In order not to completely sacrifice the magazine’s cultural and human sciences origins, a second version of the “Minuti Menarini” was created, the “Minuti Menarini Arte” which, in the year 2011, will celebrate it’s 54th year of publication.


THE MENARINI FOUNDATIONThe year 1976 was the year in which the Inter-national Menarini Foundation was set up with the aim of promoting research and knowledge in the fields of on biology, pharmacology and medicine. The Foundation has, up to date, or-ganised more than 200 International Conferen-ces on numerous topics related to medicine and biology, as well as others on themes of a social, cultural or economic nature which may be of

particular interest to members of the medical profession. These conferences, which have hosted some of the greatest in-ternational and national experts as guest speakers, have been attended by tens of thousands of doctors who have thus benefi-ted from an advanced updating and have had the opportunity to come into contact with the greatest international schools.

Today the Menarini Group is a multinational company operating in more than 100 countries with its 12 production sites, 6 rese-arch centres and almost 13.000 employees world-wide.The Menarini Group focuses on healthcare and, more specifical-ly, on the pharmaceutical, bio-technological, and diagnostics sectors.All the activities carried out on a local level by the Menarini affi-liates around the world are co-ordinated by the Menarini Hea-dquarters in Florence.

Administration


The Menarini group is: Berlin-Chemie Baltic States;Berlin-Chemie Bielorussia;Berlin-Chemie Bosnia-Erzegovina;Berlin-Chemie Bulgaria;Berlin-Chemie Croazia;Berlin-Chemie Danimarca;Berlin-Chemie Finlandia;Berlin-Chemie Germany; Berlin-Chemie Polonia;Berlin-Chemie Cechia;Berlin-Chemie SlovacchiaBerlin-Chemie Romania;Berlin-Chemie Russia;Berlin-Chemie Serbia e Montenegro;

Berlin-Chemie Slovenia;Berlin-Chemie Ucraina;Berlin-Chemie Ungheria;IE Ulagay Turkey;Laboratorios Menarini Spagna;Menarini Austria;Menarini Benelux;Menarini Bereich Diagnostika;Menarini Diagnosticos Spain;Menarini Diagnostics Balcan Countries;Menarini Diagnostics Nordic Countries;Menarini Diagnostics France;Menarini Diagnostics Germany;Menarini Diagnostics Greece;Menarini Diagnostics U.K.;

Menarini Dignosticos Portugal;Menarini Diagnostics Sweden;Menarini France;Menarini Hellas;Menarini Ireland; Menarini Luxembourg;Menarini Messico;Menarini Portugal;Menarini Switzerland;Menarini U.K.;Menarini von HeydenPhardiag Ltd;Berlin-Chemie Azerbaijan;Berlin-Chemie China;Berlin-Chemie Corea;

A. Menarini;Malesci;F.I.R.M.A.;Laboratori Guidotti;Lusofarmaco - Lusochimica;A. Menarini Diagnostics;Menarini Ricerche; Menarini Biotech;A.M.M.L.S.;CO.DI.FI.;A.Menarini Farmaceutica Internaz.;Research Toxicology Centre;Berlin-Chemie Albania;

Berlin-Chemie Georgia;Berlin-Chemie Kazakhstan;Berlin-Chemie Moldova;Berlin-Chemie Uzbekistan;Berlin-Chemie Vietnam;Menarini India;Menarini South Africa;Menarini Argentina;Menarini C. America y Caribe;

In another 90 countries all over the world the Menarini Group is represented by agents.

The author: ANTONELLO BISCINIAntonello Biscini has been working in the Menarini Group since 1983 and has a distinct ‘penchant’ for the history of technology. Starting from just a handful of photos taken in 1915 at the opening of the new Menarini factory in Via dei Sette Santi, he started adding articles, documents and other sundry items to his col-lection of ‘souvenirs’ on the history of Menarini Farmaceutiche Riunite and its sister companies within the Group. His search for mementoes went from strength to strength and he started scouring antique fairs, flea-markets and e-bay. This is how the very first collection of treasures from the past history of our company began. It wasn’t long before word got round that a colleague was collecting information and miscellaneous items on the history of Menarini and Biscini soon got contacted by friends and colleagues who wanted to add to the collection with their own ‘keepsakes’. With the help of all those colleagues who have added to the collection, one piece at a time, over the years, Biscini has gathered together a fair number of photos, magazines, documents, boxes, gadgets and the such like, all of which shall hopefully be put on show in a small museum to attest the history of our company for the future generations of colleagues yet to come.

Menarini is the first Italian pharmaceutical company in the world, headed by Dr. Aleotti, still active in the management of the company, together with his daughter and son, Lucia and Alberto Giovanni, and the two Group General Managers, Domenico Simo-ne and Piero Corsa.In a nutshell… Menarini is a remarkable example of the way in which an all-Italian company can com-pete and be successful in today’s global market, even in sectors as highly complex and innovative as Healthcare. Over the past 125 years of activities, more than one billion patients have been treated with pro-ducts manufactured by the Menarini Group.

The Director in charge: Lucia Aleotti

The Editor: A. MenariniIndustrie Farmaceutiche RiuniteVia Sette Santi, 3 - Firenze

Registered at the Court of Florence with the no. 4357 on 13.01.1994

Printed by: A. Menarini Industrie Farmaceutiche RiuniteVia Sette Santi, 3 - Firenze

Contributors to this Issue:A. Biscini, B. Hatton, A. Menarini DiagnosticsMagazine Coordinator: Valeria Speroni Cardi, A. Menarini

The room where packaging took place

menarini 125 anniversary edition€¦ · page 3 the finishing touches to the buil-ding of the...

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