Casida

Casida is a German company that develops and sells natural health products, skincare, haircare and essential oils. It was founded in 2016 in Werdau, a town in western Saxony, by the pharmacist Alexander Helm [2], and grew out of the herbal remedies his mother, the pharmacist Ute Helm, had been preparing for customers of her own pharmacy. The company, which trades as Casida GmbH, remains family-run and independent, and its products are sold chiefly through pharmacies, online pharmacies and its own web shop.

Its range reaches well beyond beauty. Alongside face oils, skin-type care and a rosemary hair treatment, Casida makes food supplements such as magnesium capsules, plant-based remedies for nail fungus and haemorrhoids, and an extensive aromatherapy line. The brand is active: it marked its tenth anniversary in 2026 with a staff of 18 and a catalogue of roughly 200 products.

The roots of Casida lie in the Central-Apotheke, the pharmacy Ute Helm runs in Werdau. According to the company, she began working with the active substances of medicinal plants in the 1980s, studying how they are prepared and how they affect wellbeing. A 2021 profile published by the Saxon entrepreneurship award notes that this work dates back to the East German era, and that she later made herbal remedies to her own recipes which were well received by the pharmacy's customers.

Alexander Helm grew up around that work. Both regional profiles of him describe how, at the age of four, he helped sort boxes and bottles in his mother's pharmacy. He studied pharmacy between 2007 and 2012 at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, and at the Carl Gustav Carus University Hospital in Dresden. The original plan was for him to take over the family pharmacy one day. Instead, he spent his first years after university as a locum, standing in for pharmacists across Germany when they were on holiday or ill. In an interview for the Saxon state campaign "So geht sächsisch", he said this showed him many sides of the trade and led to the wish to found his own company supplying pharmacies.

The first products made to the family's own recipes, including a nail oil for fungal nail infections called Nagelöl Repair & Protect, were initially made only for the Central-Apotheke's customers. Helm wanted to reach a wider public, and in 2016 he set up Casida to do so. His mother contributed her knowledge of natural remedies and took a stake in the new company [9]. The company's own pages name Alexander Helm as the founder, and he remains its managing director.

Casida started with five products. From the outset, Helm said in 2021, the aim was to be a modern brand that developed its own formulas and sold online as well as through traditional channels. The 2021 award profile reports that the company was profitable in its first business year and that its turnover had since passed the one-million mark.

In 2018 the business moved into its own premises in Werdau: a former supermarket that had stood empty, which offered enough space for storage and logistics, and where a new office floor was built for the team.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought a sharp change of pace. When disinfectants sold out in spring 2020, Casida began producing its own and added it to the range. It also published a recipe on its website for a home-made disinfectant based on essential oils; according to Helm, the article was viewed almost 200,000 times and raised the brand's profile considerably. High-dose vitamin drops and turmeric capsules followed. Helm told the award organisers that the company not only kept all its jobs through 2020 but increased its turnover [9]. At that point, in January 2021, Casida had ten employees and around 70 products.

In 2021 Casida won the public online vote in the final of "Sachsen gründet – Start-Up 2021", the founders' category of the Saxon entrepreneur-of-the-year award, and has since carried the title "Saxony's Start-Up of the Year 2021" [7]. Helm later said that the regional media coverage that followed had greatly increased the brand's recognition within Saxony.

In February 2026 the Chemnitz chamber of commerce and industry (IHK Chemnitz) marked the company's tenth anniversary with a press release. It listed the founding in 2016, the move to the company site in 2018 and the 2021 award as the main steps so far, and reported that the team had grown to 18 people and the range from five products to around 200 [11]. According to the chamber, demand now extends beyond the region to the whole German-speaking area. Recent developments it named include oil blends for patients in nursing care, vitamin concentrates and collagen products.

Casida is a family-owned business. The company describes itself as a family firm, and the current operating entity is Casida GmbH, based in Werdau with Alexander Helm as managing director; sources from 2021 give the legal form as Casida GmbH & Co. KG. No parent group has been identified. In the "So geht sächsisch" interview, Helm stressed that, unlike many young brands, Casida had no financially strong investor or parent company behind it and had to operate profitably from the start [10]. He contrasted small owner-managed brands with natural-cosmetics labels owned by large groups, which he said often keep a "green" brand in their portfolio for image reasons.

Casida's tagline, "Apothekenwissen trifft Natur – made in Germany", translates roughly as "pharmacy knowledge meets nature". The company says it combines pharmaceutical know-how with naturopathic experience in each product, and names naturalness, holism, innovation, safety and trust as its core values. Its products, it says, are developed by pharmacists, and their quality is overseen by a team of pharmacists, pharmaceutical technicians and naturopathic practitioners and checked regularly by external, independent laboratories.

The brand positions itself firmly in the pharmacy channel. In 2021 Helm said that the company's premium products would remain reserved for pharmacies [9]. Alongside pharmacies and pharmaceutical wholesalers, the same profile listed the company's own online shop and Amazon among its sales channels, and the brand's website points customers both to local pharmacies and to online pharmacies.

The company's statements about additives are not fully consistent. Its "Our story" page says it avoids chemical additives such as dyes and fragrances and "largely" avoids preservatives [2], while its "Our promise" page says it consistently does without dyes, fragrances and preservatives [3]. Both pages say it uses organic-quality ingredients wherever possible. In the "So geht sächsisch" interview, Helm spoke of a short list of ingredients and of leaving out all avoidable additives.

Accounts of where its products are sold also differ over time. Casida's current website says its products are available in pharmacies in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In 2021, the award profile described availability in pharmacies in Germany and Austria, and Helm named Switzerland and Austria as markets where the brand still wanted to become better known [10]. The same 2021 profile said the company already shipped to Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland and several Asian countries.

The Casida range is organised in three main areas. The health section covers food supplements and vitamins, magnesium products including Zechstein magnesium and magnesium glycinate capsules, probiotics, bath salts, dental care, and herbal remedies for athlete's foot, nail fungus and haemorrhoids. The cosmetics section is organised by skin type, with lines for all skin types and for mature, combination, dry and oily skin, along with face and body oils and hair care. The aromatherapy section includes organic and conventional essential oils, scent blends, roll-ons, hydrolates, room sprays, sauna infusions, carrier oils and diffusers.

In its cosmetics, the company highlights retinol and hyaluronic acid as active ingredients. The Rosmarin Haarkur, a rosemary hair treatment, is presented on the brand's homepage as its best-selling haircare product; Casida says it cares for and strengthens thinning hair. A rosemary oil for hair and scalp sits alongside it. Other products the company features prominently include the Magnesiumglycinat Kapseln Vital supplement and a set of six essential oils. The Nagelöl Repair & Protect nail oil, one of the first recipes developed at the family pharmacy, remains part of the range.

Manufacturing is concentrated in Germany, though the sources describe it differently. Casida says almost all of its products are made at the company site in western Saxony, without animal testing [2]. The 2021 award profile stated that products were made in the production rooms of the Central-Apotheke and by pharmaceutical companies in Germany that met the company's quality standards [9].

Casida displays the EU organic control number DE-ÖKO-006 and describes itself as an organically certified company [1]; the certification applies at company level and does not mean that every product is organic. The brand describes its products as free from animal testing and says that 99 percent of its range is vegetarian or vegan. Its promise page also states that the company has had itself certified by an animal-welfare organisation, though the organisation is not named in the text.

On packaging, the company set itself the goal of replacing 99 percent of its packaging with recycled material by 2025 [4]. It says it uses recycled plastic, including ocean plastic, along with brown and violet glass and recycled paper for shipping. It also presents regional production as part of its environmental approach, since it shortens transport routes. The sustainability page does not report whether the 2025 target was reached.

The company's main award is the 2021 "Saxony's Start-Up of the Year" title from the Saxon entrepreneurship competition, decided by public online voting. Casida has also been profiled by the "So geht sächsisch" campaign of the state of Saxony and by IHK Chemnitz, and its press page lists an article on the brand published by lifeverde.de.

Casida is active. In late September 2026 its website was running a seasonal autumn campaign and promoting new products, including a combination of vitamin D3, K2 and magnesium. The IHK Chemnitz press release of February 2026 quoted Helm as saying the company's aim was to win over more people to its products and to build long-term customer relationships. The company remains owner-managed and based in Werdau.