Pharmacia
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| Aktiebolag | |
| Industry | Pharmaceutical |
| Fate | Merged with Pharmacia to form Pharmacia & Upjohn |
| Founded | 1911 |
| Headquarters | Sweden |
Pharmacia was a pharmaceutical and biotechnological company in Sweden that merged with the American pharmaceutical company Upjohn in 1995.
Pharmacia company was founded in 1911 in , Sweden by pharmacist Gustav Felix Grönfeldt at the Elgen Pharmacy. The company is named after the Greek word φαρμακεία, transliterated pharmakeia, which means 'sorcery'. In the company's early days, much of its profits were derived from the "miracle medicine" Phospho-Energon.
During World War II, Swedish chemist Björn Ingelman (who worked for Arne Tiselius at Uppsala university) researched various uses for the polysaccharide dextran. Together with the medical researcher Anders Grönwall, he discovered that dextran could be used as a replacement for blood plasma in blood transfusions, for which there could be a large need in wartime. Pharmacia, which then was still a small company, was contacted in 1943 and its CEO Elis Göth was very interested. The product Macrodex, a dextran solution, was launched four years later.
Dextran-based products were to play a significant role in the further expansion of Pharmacia. In 1951, the company moved to Uppsala, Sweden, to get closer to the scientists with whom they cooperated, and Ingelman became its head of research. In 1959, Pharmacia pioneered gel filtration with its Sephadex products. These were also based on dextran and discoveries in Tiselius' department, this time by Jerker Porath and Per Flodin. In 1967 Pharmacia Fine Chemicals was established in Uppsala. In 1986 Pharmacia Fine Chemicals acquired LKB-produkter AB and changed name to Pharmacia Biotech. Pharmacia Biotech expanded their role in the "biotech revolution" through its acquisition of PL Laboratories from Pabst Brewery offering a line of recombinant DNA specialty research chemicals. Sold to private interests in the 1990s, Pharmacia was first merged with "Kabi Vitrum" to form Kabi Pharmacia with headquarters in Uppsala. In 1993, Kabi Pharmacia bought Farmitalia, an Italian company that had developed doxorubicin, a chemotherapeutic.
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