Bluepharma (full name Bluepharma - Indústria Farmacêutica, SA) is a

pharmaceutical company The pharmaceutical industry discovers, develops, produces, and markets drugs or pharmaceutical drugs for use as medications to be administered to patients (or self-administered), with the aim to cure them, vaccinate them, or alleviate sympto ...

of Portuguese ownership, which is located in

Coimbra Coimbra (, also , , or ) is a city and a municipality in Portugal. The population of the municipality at the 2011 census was 143,397, in an area of . The fourth-largest urban area in Portugal after Lisbon, Porto Metropolitan Area, Porto, and Bra ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. Bluepharma became FDA approved since 2009 for the development of solid pharmaceutical forms, "becoming the first Portuguese pharmaceutical company to export to the US market."

History

Bluepharma's production plant was acquired from Bayer AG when, at the end of the 1990s, the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

multinational company made a business decision to consolidate production at its headquarters in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. Bayer announced plans to sell the Coimbra manufacturing site by advertising in an international magazine. Paulo Barradas Rebelo, who had gained management and business skills and experience in logistics from a background as

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

of a major wholesaler and distribution company to about 500 pharmacy units within a co-operative, read about the planned sale. He contacted Sérgio Simões, who worked in research locally as a professor at the

University of Coimbra The University of Coimbra (UC; pt, Universidade de Coimbra, ) is a Public university, public research university in Coimbra, Portugal. First established in Lisbon in 1290, it went through a number of relocations until moving permanently to Coi ...

. The two men, with Isolina Mesquita who was plant manager for Bayer's Coimbra site, decided they would set up a new company, Bluepharma, with the aim of acquiring the Bayer plant and developing it as an integrated contract manufacturing business. The new company took the responsibility for all former Bayer employees, so the German work culture is still present in Bluepharma. Its buildings occupy about 14,000 square meters at several levels on a land area of 18,700 square meters. The buildings have had several improvements, the most significant being in 1989, when the site was still owned by Bayer, and in 1998. During the first half of the 2000s, the company built a laboratory between the two main buildings to do more research and development work.

Business

Bluepharma develops its activity on the following areas: *Contract-manufacturing * Biopharmaceuticals * R&D *Commerce of

generics Generic or generics may refer to: In business * Generic term, a common name used for a range or class of similar things not protected by trademark * Generic brand, a brand for a product that does not have an associated brand or trademark, other ...

in Portugal Bluepharma has clients in Portugal, France, Germany and in the UK, among others. One of Bluepharma's main clients is Bayer to which the Portuguese company produced around 3.5 million units in 2004. Other clients include pharmaceuticals brands and companies such as Teva, Ivax, Arrow, EG LABO ( Stada), Bexal (

Hexal Novartis AG is a Swiss-American multinational pharmaceutical corporation based in Basel, Switzerland and Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States (global research).name="novartis.com">https://www.novartis.com/research-development/research-loca ...

), Mepha (

Ratiopharm Ratiopharm is a German pharmaceutical company that is Europe's leading generics brand. Ratiopharm was owned by Adolf Merckle and makes generic pharmaceuticals. They are based in Ulm, Germany, with products being distributed in over 35 countries ...

) and Ciclum (

Grünenthal Grünenthal is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Aachen in Germany. It was founded in 1946 as Chemie Grünenthal and has been continuously family-owned. The company was the first to introduce penicillin into the German market in the po ...

). Most Bluepharma's employees have academic degrees and many have post-graduate degrees (MSc and PhDs) as well.

Research & Development

In the R&D area, Bluepharma has research projects in the

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

field and is developing generic.

References

Pharmaceutical companies of Portugal Portuguese brands Organisations based in Coimbra {{med-company-stub