Dr. Niedermaier

Dr. Niedermaier is a German maker of fermented dietary supplements and skincare, based in Hohenbrunn on the southern edge of Munich. The company traces its origins to 1939, when the pharmacist and food chemist Dr. Hans Niedermaier founded Dr. Niedermaier Pharma GmbH [3]. Its products are built around the Regulatessenz®, a liquid concentrate of fermented fruit, vegetables and nuts made through a multi-stage process the company calls cascade fermentation. Alongside the drinks and capsules that make up most of its range, it sells a seven-product facial care line under the name "Fermented".

For most of its history the business was a small family company, and by the time the founder's daughter took charge in 2001 it was in financial difficulty. Its commercial growth came in the 2000s and 2010s, largely on the back of ingestible beauty products. In July 2022 the Swiss investment firm Ufenau Capital Partners acquired a majority stake in the Dr. Niedermaier Pharma group. The brand remains active and continues to trade under its own name.

Hans Niedermaier (1913–2003) trained as both a pharmacist and a food chemist. The company's own history describes him founding the business in a period "marked by unrest and uncertainty", guided by two ideas he held throughout his career: "health the natural way" and "healing through self-healing". The company was registered as a pharmaceutical firm in Hohenbrunn, near Munich, where it is still headquartered.

According to the company, Niedermaier's work in naturopathy gave him a detailed understanding of ferments, the enzyme-rich products of fermentation, and of how they relate to the body's own enzymes. From this he developed the manufacturing method that still defines the brand: cascade fermentation, in which plant ingredients are fermented repeatedly in successive stages. The company refers to the process as the "royal road of fermentation".

His daughter, Dr. Cordula Niedermaier-May, gave a less flattering picture of the business side in a 2018 interview with the Munich magazine EXKLUSIV München. She described her father as a brilliant researcher but not a skilled businessman. In the 1970s, she said, he commissioned empirical studies on how ferments act in the body and used the results to develop new production technologies, but the company did not prosper and eventually slipped into the red [9].

### A second generation

Cordula Niedermaier-May, also a pharmacist with a doctorate in natural sciences, did not originally plan to join the family firm. After her pharmacy studies she opened her own pharmacy. The company's account of what changed her mind centres on an event in 2000, when the family dog fell ill from pesticide poisoning and, according to the family, recovered after being given a fermented essence. She then sold her pharmacy and took over her father's struggling company and research in 2001 [3].

In the 2018 interview she said the company was heavily in debt when she started running it, and that she spent the early years going door to door to win customers. She also said she had used the Regulatessenz herself, both taken daily and applied to the skin, during a period of skin problems in her forties, and credited it with clearing her eczema. That account is her own and has not been independently documented.

### The 2003 breakthrough

The turning point came in 2003, when a feature in a health magazine produced a sudden wave of orders. The two available accounts differ on the details. The company's history page names the magazine as "Natur und Heilen" and describes the piece as a six-page PR feature [3]. In the 2018 interview, Niedermaier-May described it as a nine-page experience report in a health magazine, without naming the title [9]. Both accounts agree on the effect: thousands of bottles were ordered almost overnight, and the company expanded its production, took on more staff and introduced machine-based manufacturing.

### Growth and a new site

Over the following years the company broadened its range from the original fermented essence into beauty drinks and cosmetics. The most commercially significant of these was Regulatpro® Hyaluron, a drinkable product combining the fermented essence with hyaluronic acid. EXKLUSIV München reported in 2018 that a pack of Regulatpro Hyaluron was sold somewhere in the world every 30 seconds and that the company's products were sold in more than 55 countries [9]. The magazine also described the company as a market leader in fermented supplements and natural cosmetics; those figures and that position came from the company and were not independently verified.

According to the same interview, the company moved into a new 15,000-square-metre building in Hohenbrunn in 2017, with its own production facilities and an in-house laboratory.

By 2018 the business was still run as a family company across generations. The interview named Niedermaier-May's son, Alexander May, as responsible for international sales from Switzerland and expected at the time to lead the company in the third generation. Other members of the extended family held roles in marketing, PR and domestic sales.

### Private-equity ownership

In July 2022 the Niedermaier-May family opened what the company calls "a new chapter": Ufenau Capital Partners, an investment firm based in Switzerland, took a majority stake in the Dr. Niedermaier Pharma group [3]. The stated aim was to build Dr. Niedermaier into a leading group for dietary supplements in Europe, through acquisitions, a broader product portfolio and wider geographic reach.

As part of that plan, an umbrella company called NZYM Group was formed. It went on to acquire the Sinoplasan group, another supplement manufacturer based near Stuttgart that specialises in capsule products; the company has not published the year of that purchase [3]. Dennis Gmeiner became managing director in Hohenbrunn in November 2024. In a statement on the company's website he described Ufenau as a strategic investor and said the company culture and its focus on health would not change.

Dr. Niedermaier Pharma GmbH was founded and for more than eight decades owned by the Niedermaier family. Since July 2022 the majority shareholder of the group has been Ufenau Capital Partners of Switzerland. The brand now sits within NZYM Group, the holding structure created after the investment, alongside the Sinoplasan supplement business.

The company's own history page still describes it as "an independent, German family company" with a tradition dating back to 1939, while the same page records the 2022 majority investment by Ufenau.

The brand's nationality can appear ambiguous. Its origin, headquarters and production are in Hohenbrunn, Germany. However, the brand's Swiss web shop is operated by a separate company, Dr. Niedermaier Pharma Switzerland AG, registered in Appenzell, Switzerland [4]. Consumer-facing pages under that company use the name "Dr. Niedermaier Switzerland AG". The German company remains the origin of the brand and the site of manufacturing.

Dr. Niedermaier presents itself as a fermentation specialist first and a beauty brand second. Its tagline is "Since 1939 Experts in Fermentation", and its corporate motto, in use for more than 80 years according to the company, is "Aus dem Leben, für das Leben, für das Lebendige" – roughly "from life, for life, for the living". The current mission statement, "We ferment the best of nature for your health", places health rather than appearance at the centre.

That positioning shapes the product range. Most of what the company sells is taken by mouth: fermented essences, beauty drinks and a line of vitamins, minerals and plant extracts, including omega-3 algae oil, vitamin D3 with K2, magnesium, bitter drops and a vegan collagen-support capsule. The skincare sits alongside these as a topical counterpart. The brand is therefore closely tied to the "beauty from within" idea, which pairs ingestible products with conventional skincare, and the 2018 EXKLUSIV München article presented it in exactly those terms.

The company's stated credo for quality is "tested, controlled and certified". It says it works with outside research institutions and testing laboratories, naming the Technical University of Munich, the University of Giessen, the nutrition research and testing laboratory Bio-TeSys and the independent testing institute Dermatest [7]. The company also says it has carried out clinical studies on the oral intake of hyaluronic acid and on the effect of its cascade-fermented supplements on the immune system. Those studies relate to ingestible products rather than cosmetics, and their findings are not summarised here.

Distribution runs through several channels. The brand operates its own web shops for a number of European countries, offers subscriptions and a loyalty programme, and supplies specialist retailers and practitioners through a dedicated business-to-business portal.

### Cascade fermentation and the Regulatessenz

The core of the business is the Regulatessenz®, which the company calls the "heart" of Dr. Niedermaier. It is made by cascade fermentation, a process the company says takes more than six weeks across three main stages:

- Stage one: fresh raw ingredients – the company names dates, walnuts and lemons among them – are chopped and mixed with natural lactic acid bacteria, and a first fermentation runs for around 48 hours. - Stage two: after about three weeks, the filtered liquid is fermented again with fresh lactic acid bacteria, and further fermentation stages follow on the same principle, breaking the ingredients down more finely each time. - Stage three: all the fermented fractions are combined for a final fermentation, and a closing heating step produces what the company describes as postbiotics.

The 2018 interview described the result as a liquid enzyme concentrate made from sun-ripened fruit, vegetables and nuts. The company holds a European patent for the cascade fermentation process, entry number 1153549 at the European Patent Office, which it describes as a milestone in its history [6]. It markets the process in English as Cascade Fermentation™.

### Beauty drinks

The best-known product is Regulatpro® Hyaluron, a drink that combines the fermented essence with hyaluronic acid. EXKLUSIV München described it in 2018 as the first vegan anti-ageing beauty drink, a claim made in the magazine's own voice rather than as a documented industry record. The current range lists several beauty drinks and travel sizes alongside the fermented essences.

### Skincare

The brand's first cosmetics line based on the fermented essence was Regulat Beauty. In the 2018 interview, Niedermaier-May presented it as the first vegan high-end cosmetics line built on the Regulatessenz. The same article reported that the actresses Veronica Ferres and Sylvie Meis were among users who had spoken positively of the line; Niedermaier-May also cited Dana Schweiger. These endorsements were reported by the magazine and the company and are not independently documented.

The current facial range is called "Fermented" and consists of seven products designed to be used as a morning and evening routine: Fermented Gentle Cleansing Foam, Fermented Refreshing Facial Tonic, Fermented Lifting Serum, Fermented Firming Eye Cream, Fermented Hydra Day Cream, Fermented Extra Rich Cream and Fermented Repair Night Cream. Each contains what the company calls a 20 per cent prebiotic and postbiotic complex, intended to support the skin's protective barrier. The line also relies on skin lipids such as ceramides and membrane lipids, which the company says help restore the skin's structure. The Lifting Serum, built around hyaluronic acid, and the Firming Eye Cream are highlighted as the line's bestsellers.

Dr. Niedermaier describes the Fermented range as dermatologically developed and suitable for sensitive skin, and says the products have been dermatologically tested for skin tolerance. The wider cosmetics offer also includes body care and haircare.

### Formulation and packaging

According to the company, all of its products are free from silicones and parabens and contain no mineral oils. It says its cosmetics are tested and certified under the ICADA natural cosmetics standard [1]. All products are labelled "Made in Germany", with production at the company's own site in Hohenbrunn.

For the Fermented line, the company says the outer packaging has 95 per cent recycled content and that the glass and plastic components are designed to be separated easily for recycling [5].

No industry awards are documented for the brand. In 2018 the Munich magazine EXKLUSIV München published a feature on Cordula Niedermaier-May and her turnaround of the family company. The 2003 feature in "Natur und Heilen" is cited by the company as the start of its commercial success.

Dr. Niedermaier is active. The company sells its products through web shops for Switzerland, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria, France, Italy and Spain, and through specialist trade partners. Its Swiss web shop announces a redesigned shop, and the legal notice on that site was updated on 24 September 2026 [4]. Since November 2024 the company has been led by managing director Dennis Gmeiner, under the majority ownership of Ufenau Capital Partners.