KLINGE

KLINGE is the brand of Klinge Pharma GmbH, a German pharmaceutical company based in Holzkirchen, near Munich, that makes over-the-counter and prescription medicines alongside a smaller range of skin and scalp care. Its name goes back to a chemical-pharmaceutical factory founded in Berlin in 1933 [3]. In beauty and personal care the company matters mainly through two lines: Physiogel, a dermocosmetic range for dry and sensitive skin that it took over from GSK in 2020, and Ketoconazol Klinge, a medicated anti-dandruff shampoo launched in 2022.

The company is owned by the brothers Dr. Andreas and Dr. Thomas Strüngmann, who bought the Klinge brand in 2014 through their Athos group. Klinge Pharma presents 1933 as its starting point, but the line of descent is not unbroken. The original Klinge Pharma became a Japanese-owned subsidiary and was renamed in 2002, and today's Klinge Pharma GmbH grew out of the brand and products that the Athos group later bought from Astellas Pharma GmbH [9]. The brand is active, and its products are sold mainly through pharmacies.

According to the company, Klinge began in 1933 as the "Chemisch-pharmazeutische Fabrik A. Klinge" (chemical-pharmaceutical factory A. Klinge) in Berlin. Its roots lie in the Victoria-Apotheke, a pharmacy on Friedrichstraße in the centre of the city. Beyond the name in the original company title, little is documented about the people who started the business.

After the Second World War the firm opened a branch in Munich. In 1948 that branch became the parent company, Klinge Pharma GmbH & Co., and in 1949 the company moved its seat to Munich [12].

### A Munich drugmaker (1949–1983)

Over the following two decades the company grew by founding and buying other businesses and by bringing out new products. Two of its longest-lived medicines date from this period: Vomex, a treatment for nausea and vomiting, was approved in 1968, and Carvomin digestive drops followed in 1972. That same year Klinge set up a subsidiary with a new production site in Killorglin, Ireland, and another in Vienna. In 1982 it built a new headquarters on Berg-am-Laim-Straße in Munich.

### Under Fujisawa and Astellas (1983–2014)

In 1983 the Japanese company Fujisawa Pharmaceutical bought its first shares in Klinge. By January 2002 the German firm had become a wholly owned Fujisawa subsidiary and was renamed Fujisawa Deutschland GmbH [12]. Its German operations later passed to Astellas, the group formed when Fujisawa merged with Yamanouchi in 2005. The Klinge name survived as a brand inside the Astellas business rather than as a company of its own.

### A new start under the Athos group (2014–2017)

In 2014 the Athos group acquired the Klinge brand from Astellas Pharma GmbH, together with the medicines Vomex A, Vertigo-Vomex, Venostasin and Arctuvan [9]. The business was first folded into the Strathos Pharma Group, based in Bad Ems.

In April 2017 Klinge Pharma was spun off as an independent company with a new head office in Holzkirchen. The announcement at the time pointed to steady expansion and rising sales of the company's established brands as the reason for the move. It also said Klinge would put more weight on prescription medicines, invest in its own research projects and build a sales team calling on doctors. The managing directors were then Dr. Thomas Strüngmann and Helmut Jeggle.

### Growth by acquisition (2020 onwards)

The deal that brought Klinge into skincare came in March 2020, when the pharmacy trade newspaper APOTHEKE ADHOC reported that GSK had sold its Physiogel line to Klinge and its sister company Aristo [8]. Klinge took the brand for Germany, Austria and France. The report described the purchase as a move into a new therapeutic field for the company, and as a way to strengthen its position in pharmacies.

More acquisitions followed. In 2021 Klinge bought the charcoal tablets Kohle-Compretten from Procter & Gamble, and in 2023 it acquired Symbiopharm GmbH and launched Elytro, a glucose-electrolyte mixture [3]. The company's own timeline also marks 2021 as the year it introduced its first prescription medicine, although its 2017 announcement had already named prescription products such as Camlostar among its launches.

Klinge Pharma belongs to Dr. Andreas and Dr. Thomas Strüngmann, who acquired it in 2014 through their Athos group [3]. The family, which APOTHEKE ADHOC describes as the family of the founders of Hexal, also owns other pharmaceutical businesses that Klinge works alongside.

Two of these sister companies shared in the Physiogel purchase. Aristo Pharma took over the line in Poland, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ukraine, while Megalabs, also owned by the Hexal founders' family, took Physiogel in Brazil, Mexico and Chile together with the brands Sunmax and Clindo [8]. Klinge was given the job of coordinating the brand across Europe and South America. In the same 2020 report, APOTHEKE ADHOC noted that the Strüngmann family had just acquired Galderma, a competitor in medical skincare, as part of a consortium.

Klinge Pharma itself owns Symbiopharm, which it bought in 2023 and now reports together with its own figures.

Klinge Pharma describes itself as a maker of over-the-counter and prescription medicines and health products, focused on four areas: digestive health, dermatology, venous health and urinary-tract health. The company says it grows on three tracks: improving existing products, buying new brands and developing its own. Its tagline is "Gemeinsam für Gesundheit" ("Together for health").

The company's self-portrait leans on its workforce. It calls itself "ambitioniert mit Herz" ("ambitious with heart") and lists three values: "gemeinsam" (together), "stark" (strong) and "herausragend" (outstanding). On its website it reports 110 employees, 32 products, a 57 percent share of women in leadership roles and average annual revenue growth of 20 percent since 2020; these are the company's own figures.

Skincare has a defined place in that strategy. When it took over Physiogel in 2020, managing director Dr. Ines Bohn said Klinge planned to add prescription products to its dermatology range and to build the field into a strategic growth area next to its broad line of digestive products. Its dermatology portfolio now also includes the medicines Adapaben, Betasacyl and Sumilor.

The company speaks to two audiences. Its public site addresses consumers, while a separate portal for doctors and pharmacists sits behind a professional login, because German rules on the advertising of medicines restrict some product information to health-care professionals.

### Physiogel

Physiogel is older than Klinge's ownership of it. It was originally a brand of the dermatology company Stiefel, which GSK bought in 2009 for about €2.5 billion [8]. According to APOTHEKE ADHOC, GSK did little with the line at first, then made it a priority in 2014, when it described Physiogel as the number-one dermatologist recommendation worldwide and sought to position it for everyday use on dry skin. In 2016 GSK ran a pharmacy display programme with "gold" and "silver" packages that set out exactly how the products had to be shelved. The brand still fell short of the growth GSK had hoped for, and the sale came as the group shifted its attention to much larger brands in connection with taking over Pfizer's over-the-counter business.

Under Klinge, Physiogel is presented as a body-care line for dry and sensitive skin. It is organised into several ranges:

- Daily Moisture Therapy, everyday moisturisers including hand cream, shower cream, body lotion and creams, with a richer sub-range for very dry skin. - Calming Relief A.I., developed for sensitive, irritated skin prone to atopic eczema. - Calming Relief, facial care and cleansing, including an anti-redness serum and a day cream with SPF 20. - Scalp Care, mild shampoos for a sensitive scalp. - Basis, simple light and rich creams.

The company lists a lipid (fat) content for most products, from about 2 percent in the shower cream to 41 percent in the richest creams. Klinge says the line is built on what it calls BioMimetic Technology. According to the company, all Physiogel products are hypoallergenic, non-comedogenic (they do not clog pores) and recommended by dermatologists, and they contain no fragrance or dyes; many are described as suitable for babies and children. The Basis creams go further, and Klinge says they contain no silicones, classic preservatives or emulsifiers.

### Ketoconazol Klinge

The company's second scalp-care product is a medicine. Ketoconazol Klinge 20 mg/g Shampoo went on sale in pharmacies on 15 November 2022 [10]. It treats and helps prevent seborrhoeic dermatitis, a chronic, flaky inflammation of the scalp, and ordinary dandruff, both linked to an overgrowth of a yeast that normally lives on the skin.

Each gram of shampoo contains 20 mg of the antifungal ketoconazole [11], a 2 percent strength also found in older shampoos such as Nizoral. Klinge added dexpanthenol, a form of vitamin B5 meant to moisturise the scalp and support its repair. In its press release the company presented this combination as what sets the shampoo apart from comparable products. The shampoo is used twice a week for two to four weeks during a flare-up and then every one to two weeks to keep symptoms from returning. Trade coverage of the launch suggested pairing it with the mild shampoos in the Physiogel Scalp Care range. On its product website the company says the shampoo reduces flakes, relieves itching and works against the yeast from the first use.

### Medicines

Most of the portfolio lies outside beauty. Vomex A for nausea and vomiting remains a core product, alongside Venostasin for heavy legs, Arctuvan bearberry-leaf preparation for urinary-tract complaints, the ginkgo product Binko, and digestive products such as Kohle-Compretten and Elytro.

KLINGE is an active brand. For the 2025 financial year Klinge Pharma published a disclosure under Article 24 of the EU Ecodesign Regulation 2024/1781, covering the destruction of unsold consumer products. The statement, which also covers Symbiopharm, lists 22,153 units of cosmetic products destroyed during the year because they had expired or were damaged [5]. The company says it has already improved its sales planning, donated goods to charities and used promotions to clear stock, and that it plans to expand donation and reuse channels.

Its corporate timeline lists a new prescription medicine for scalp psoriasis under 2025 [3]. The company remains headquartered in Holzkirchen.