InfectoPharm

InfectoPharm (legally InfectoPharm Arzneimittel und Consilium GmbH) is a family-owned German pharmaceutical company based in Heppenheim, Hesse. It was founded in 1988 by Monika Zöller and the chemist Dr. Manfred Zöller, and built its business on reworking established medicines, starting with antibiotic syrups, so that children would take them more readily [5]. Most of its portfolio consists of medicines, many of them prescription-only, but the company also makes a small range of dermatological skin-care products, led by the Neuroderm basic-care line for dry and eczema-prone skin.

The company is still run by the founding family, now in its second generation. According to its February 2026 factsheet, the group employs more than 470 people and had revenue of about 325 million euros in 2025, with subsidiaries in Germany and branches in five other European countries [5]. It remains active, with company news published as recently as September 2026.

InfectoPharm was set up in Weinheim by the married couple Monika and Manfred Zöller [9]. A forerunner, the Institut Dr. Zöller, had handled drug approvals and marketing work for other companies. The new firm's idea was simple: rather than search for new active substances, it would take well-known antibiotics and adapt their formulation, taste and dosing to children. German Wikipedia notes that in some cases this allowed the number of daily doses to be cut by half.

The founders' own motto, still quoted on the company's homepage, is that children need special medicines that taste good and are willingly taken. The first product, launched in 1988, was the dry syrup InfectoCillin, based on the penicillin phenoxymethylpenicillin. It was followed by InfectoMycin in 1990 and InfectoBicillin in 1992.

From the start, Manfred Zöller chose a different route to doctors than most drug makers. Instead of building a sales force that visited surgeries, he relied on medical training. A year after the founding, in 1989, the company launched the consilium infectiorum together with six professors: an advisory service meant to answer questions from medical practice in a product-neutral way. As the trade publication APOTHEKE ADHOC reported in 2013, the company still sent no sales representatives into practices or pharmacies at that time.

The company moved from Weinheim to Heppenheim in the mid-1990s, but the year is reported differently. InfectoPharm's own history page and German Wikipedia give 1995, when the firm had 17 employees [3]; APOTHEKE ADHOC's 2013 company profile dates the move to 1996 [10].

The years that followed brought a setback. An unusually mild infection season cut demand for antibiotics, and revenue fell. The company responded by widening its focus beyond infections to chronic conditions such as asthma and allergies. The head-lice treatment InfectoPedicul marked a first step into new areas, and between 1998 and 2002 InfectoPharm moved into the hospital market with the antibiotic InfectoFos. In 2008 the business newspaper Handelsblatt reported that InfectoPedicul had become the most-prescribed head-lice remedy in Germany [9].

International expansion began in 2004, with sales in Austria, Poland and the Czech Republic. A year later the company invested ten million euros to double its premises in Heppenheim, and a further building with 85 office and laboratory places opened in early 2008. In 2012 InfectoPharm opened a company daycare centre on its grounds, built for 1.5 million euros and open to the children of employees and local residents.

Manfred Zöller died unexpectedly in 2011, aged 63. Monika Zöller formed a new management team, and their son Philipp Zöller, a pharmacist who had worked at Berlin's Charité hospital, joined it. In 2013, the company's 25th anniversary year, APOTHEKE ADHOC described InfectoPharm as better known among paediatricians than in pharmacies, and reported that over-the-counter (non-prescription) products such as Neuroderm, InfectoPedicul and LomaHerpan accounted for about one fifth of revenue [10]. The company was then planning a push into pharmacies, including training courses for pharmacists.

Two new directions followed in 2015. The subsidiary Pädia GmbH was set up to sell non-prescription products for children, and InfectoPharm launched Geriasan, an umbrella brand of liquid medicines for older people who have difficulty swallowing, beginning with metformin and gabapentin. Two years later it invested 13 million euros in an 8,350-square-metre logistics centre in Heppenheim, which went into operation in 2018. An Austrian branch opened in Vienna in 2017.

In July 2020 Monika Zöller handed the chair of the management board to Philipp Zöller, and Michael Gilster, husband of daughter Anna Gilster, joined the board. The pace of growth then picked up: a branch in Italy in 2021, the Ritalin portfolio from Novartis in 2022, subsidiaries in France and the United Kingdom in 2024, and a Polish branch in 2025.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the company's oldest business. With infections suppressed, demand for children's penicillin syrups collapsed, and InfectoPharm lost around half a million euros on them. According to German Wikipedia, all other makers except one stopped producing penicillin syrups in that period. When infections returned, InfectoPharm delivered more than 750,000 packs between October 2022 and March 2023, covering 97 percent of the German market [9]. Its chairman then wrote an open letter to Karl Lauterbach arguing that the fixed reimbursement price for antibiotic syrups, unchanged at a net 1.65 euros per amoxicillin syrup between 2010 and 2023, was no longer economically viable, and warning of shortages of children's medicines.

InfectoPharm has no parent company. Its factsheet describes it as a family-owned company in its second generation. Philipp Zöller has chaired the management board since 2020; the other managing directors are Michael Gilster, Dr. Markus Rudolph and Dr. Aldo Ammendola, who succeeded Norbert Stempel in May 2023. Dr. Anna Gilster runs the Pädia subsidiary.

The group has grown partly through acquisitions:

- 2020: the chemical and pharmaceutical production business of Paul W. Beyvers GmbH in Berlin, now a subsidiary working as a contract manufacturer of liquid and semi-liquid products [9] - 2022: the Ritalin (methylphenidate) portfolio from Novartis, distributed by InfectoPharm since 1 May 2022 and sold in 19 countries [3] - 2025: Sonormed GmbH of Hamburg, developer of the prescribable "Meine Tinnitus App", since renamed InfectoPharm Digital Health GmbH [9]

Alongside these subsidiaries, the group runs sales companies in Austria, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and Poland. Most of its medicines are made by about 30 contract manufacturers, all based in Europe, with part of the range produced at Beyvers in Berlin.

Figures for the company's size vary by source and date. The February 2026 factsheet gives more than 470 employees and about 325 million euros in revenue for 2025, while the company's "About us" page gives over 400 employees and about 250 million euros; German Wikipedia lists 426 employees and 279 million euros for 2023.

InfectoPharm sums up its approach in the motto "Wissen wirkt" ("knowledge works"), rendered in its English factsheet as "Knowledge is Health". The company says its core is the development and continuous improvement of medicines based on active ingredients that are already medically proven. It does not research new active substances, focusing instead on better forms, doses and flavours of existing ones.

Paediatrics remains the centre of gravity. InfectoPharm describes itself as a market leader in German paediatrics, with particular strength in infections, dermatology and ear, nose and throat medicine. Its listed areas also include lung medicine, allergy and geriatrics, and its products reach patients mainly through doctors' prescriptions, hospitals and pharmacies.

The consilium service is what the company presents as its distinguishing feature: free, product-independent consulting and training for doctors and other health professionals. In 2013 it ran 25 events with an average of 120 doctors each, and around 350 specialists answered questions by fax, phone and email. Its six stated values are being open to innovation, entrepreneurial, striving for excellence, customer-oriented, sustainable and respectful.

According to the factsheet, InfectoPharm sells more than 140 products, of which about 80 are prescription-only medicines, and holds over 400 marketing authorisations. Well-known names include the antibiotic syrups InfectoCillin, InfectoMycin and InfectoBicillin, the hospital antibiotic InfectoFos, SalbuBronch (oral salbutamol, introduced in 2007), InfectoDexaKrupp (dexamethasone for croup) and the head-lice treatment InfectoPedicul. More recent additions include the ear-cleansing medical device Otowaxol and the orphan drug Hyftor, marketed from 2025. Through its subsidiary Pädia, the group launched Dimet 5, another head-lice treatment, in August 2026.

Skin care is a small part of this portfolio, and it is the part that is classed as cosmetics. The Neuroderm range comprises Neuroderm Pflegecreme, Pflegecreme Lipo, PflegeLotio, Repair and an almond-oil bath. Its flagship cream is labelled a cosmetic product rather than a medicine [8]. The company recommends it for basic care, for example in atopic dermatitis (eczema). It is a white water-in-oil cream with a lipid content of 30 percent, and glycerin at 20 percent is listed as its main active ingredient. Its other listed ingredients include water, paraffin oil, isopropyl palmitate and tocopherol (vitamin E). The company says the cream is suitable for adults, children and babies.

The skin-care range also includes SanaCutan Basiscreme and Basissalbe, a basic cream and ointment, and BabyBene Gel, formulated with jojoba and olive oils. No third-party certifications are documented for these products.

Beyond its own products, InfectoPharm takes part in other companies' development work. It has a vaccine alliance with MSD, and in 2025 it joined an investor cooperation with the biotechnology company AudioCure on a drug candidate for sudden hearing loss.

The company's environmental programme is called InfectoGreen. InfectoPharm says it buys 100 percent renewable electricity and is adding solar panels. An energy audit in December 2024 found that its direct and energy-related indirect carbon emissions had fallen by about 46 percent compared with 2019, when they stood at 300 tonnes [6]. The company offsets remaining emissions through the climate organisation atmosfair. The programme covers company operations; product packaging is not part of the stated targets.

InfectoPharm states that InfectoDexaKrupp was voted the most innovative product in 2010–2011. Its factsheet also lists recognition from the medical community, including a "Golden Tablet" award, and business awards as "Most Crisis-Proof Employer", "Most Crisis-Proof Company" and "Most Innovative Company"; the years of these awards are not given.

In December 2019 the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt partly upheld, on appeal, a complaint of misleading advertising over Lomaherpan, a lemon-balm extract then sold as a medicine for cold sores. The court found that the advertising suggested a preventive effect in blocking the herpes virus that was not covered by the product's approval [9].

InfectoPharm is active and independent. Its newsroom reported a strategic partnership with HAL Allergy on 2 September 2026 covering digital health applications (DiGA) [4]. Earlier posts that summer announced a podcast series within the consilium service and Pädia's head-lice launch. The company reports annual growth of about 10 percent and sales in more than 30 countries, with Europe as its main market.