Schülke

Schülke, legally Schülke & Mayr, is a German infection-prevention and hygiene company founded in Hamburg in 1889 [3]. It makes disinfectants for skin, hands, surfaces and instruments, antiseptics, and a range of medical skin care, and it sells to hospitals, care institutions, pharmacies, rescue services and the pharmaceutical industry. For consumers, the name is most closely linked with the octenisan wash lotion and other products built around the antiseptic agent octenidine, which the company patented and brought to market in 1989.

The company's story begins with one product, the disinfectant Lysol, and a cholera epidemic that made it famous in its home city. Over the following century Schülke passed through a long line of owners, from an American trading house to Sterling Drug, Eastman Kodak, Air Liquide and two investment firms. Since 2023 it has been owned by a consortium led by ATHOS, the family office of Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann. Its group headquarters is in Norderstedt in northern Germany, and it remains an active, independently branded business.

According to the company, two merchants, Rudolf Schülke and Julius Mayr, met in a trading office in central Hamburg in April 1889 to sign the contract that created the firm of Schülke & Mayr [3]. The German Wikipedia article gives a somewhat different picture of the two men: it describes Schülke as a ship's captain and his partner as the Amsterdam merchant Julius Mayr-Bertheau, and dates the founding precisely to 15 April 1889 in the Hamburg district of Winterhude [8]. Both accounts refer to the same two people and the same year; they differ only in how the founders are described and in the form of Mayr's surname.

The founders' first branded product was Lysol, a water-soluble disinfectant. German Wikipedia records that in the year of the founding the partners acquired the worldwide patent for making Lysol for 50,000 gold marks, after the product had been examined by Robert Koch [8].

Lysol's breakthrough came quickly. In the summer of 1892 a cholera epidemic broke out in Hamburg, and the company says its disinfectant helped to contain the outbreak and save lives. In 1893 the City of Hamburg awarded the firm a gilded certificate of honour in recognition of its response to the epidemic. Schülke says the episode established its brand worldwide.

Product development continued in the early twentieth century. In 1913 the company patented chlorinated phenols as active ingredients, which led to the disinfectant Sagrotan. Another brand, Grotan, followed in 1924. Sagrotan was later sold to Reckitt Benckiser, according to German Wikipedia [8].

The firm became a limited liability company (GmbH) in 1952, in the years of recovery after the Second World War. In the 1960s it moved from Hamburg to Norderstedt. German Wikipedia dates the move to 1963, while the company's own timeline places the building of its new Norderstedt factory, with modern production equipment and laboratories, across the period from 1961 to 1976. Norderstedt has remained the company's main production site and headquarters ever since.

In 1972 the company set up the Rudolf Schülke Stiftung, a foundation named after its co-founder that supports research in hygiene and microbiology and awards a Hygiene Prize every two years. Six years later, in 1978, Schülke launched the preservative Euxyl K 100.

The late 1980s brought the development that still shapes the company's range. In 1989, its centenary year, Schülke introduced the antiseptic Neo-Kodan, containing the patented agent octenidine. By then the company had more than 500 employees and distribution around the world. A year later, in 1990, it launched Octenisept, an octenidine-based antiseptic for mucous membranes, and in 2007 it added an octenidine mouthwash solution.

Growth in Norderstedt continued with a 10,800-square-metre logistics centre, opened in 2009. The company marked its 130th anniversary in 2019, describing its history as one of surviving epidemics, wars and changes of ownership.

In 2022 and 2023 the company expanded through acquisitions. It bought the Danish surface-disinfection specialist Wet Wipe, which it describes as its entry into the Scandinavian market, and Vesismin Health, a business focused on infection control in hospitals. In the same period it launched a plastic-free green line of its mikrozid universal wipes. In September 2025 Schülke acquired Redditch Medical, a UK-based specialist in contamination control for cleanrooms founded in 2012, adding its InSpec range of disinfectants and detergents and its technical validation services to the company's life-science portfolio [10].

Schülke has changed owners many times. In 1920 the New York trading house Lehn & Fink acquired the company's shares [3]. In 1966 Schülke was taken over by Sterling Drug, and when Eastman Kodak bought Sterling Drug in 1988, Schülke came with it. In 1994 Reckitt & Colman became a shareholder [8].

In 1996 the French group Air Liquide bought Schülke & Mayr [3]. The company describes the following two decades under Air Liquide as a period of stability and partnership.

In 2020 the Swedish investment firm EQT acquired Schülke from Air Liquide. At that point the business was broader than today and included chemical additives for cosmetics. Trade publication CHEManager reports that under EQT the company sold off non-core operations, made strategic acquisitions, achieved double-digit annual revenue growth and nearly doubled earnings in its core healthcare business [9]. Chief executive Stefan Kukacka said at the time that the company had pursued five add-on acquisitions during that period.

In August 2023 EQT announced the sale of Schülke to a consortium led by ATHOS, the Munich-based family office of Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann, founders of Hexal and shareholders in BioNTech. The parties did not disclose the price, though Bloomberg reported an expected figure of about 1.4 billion euros [9]. The company's own timeline and German Wikipedia both record the consortium as the new owner from 2023.

Schülke operates through subsidiaries, branches and national distribution partners on five continents, including companies in Japan, Australia, Austria, the Benelux countries and the Czech Republic. The company's Swiss website lists "Schülke & Mayr AG" in Frauenfeld, Switzerland, as its headquarters [6]. That entity is the Swiss subsidiary; the company's history page, German Wikipedia and CHEManager all place the group headquarters in Norderstedt, Germany [9].

Schülke does not present itself as a beauty brand. It describes itself as an infection-prevention and hygiene company, and its stated mission is "Wir schützen Leben weltweit" – "We protect lives worldwide." Its current tagline, "Schutz und Hygiene für eine sichere Zukunft," translates as "protection and hygiene for a safe future."

The company lists four core values: trust, innovation, quality and passion. Under quality, it says patient safety is its top priority. Schülke says it offers customised hygiene solutions across healthcare, pharmacies, rescue services, the pharmaceutical industry and cleanrooms. German Wikipedia classifies the company under the chemical industry and summarises its business as mainly disinfectants for surfaces, instruments and skin, alongside special additives for preservation and digital hygiene services.

Its range is divided into products for private use and products for professional use. The private-use range covers wound care, intimate health, oral care, hand care, nasal care and skin care. The professional range adds surface and instrument disinfection, mucous-membrane antisepsis and related equipment.

Octenidine is the thread that runs through much of Schülke's modern range. The company patented the antiseptic agent and first used it in Neo-Kodan in 1989, then in Octenisept, an antiseptic for mucous membranes, and later in an oral-care solution.

The product most relevant to everyday skin care is octenisan wash lotion, which Schülke describes as a wash lotion for skin and hair based on selected care ingredients. Other current products on the company's website include desmanol pure, a ready-to-use alcohol solution for hygienic and surgical hand disinfection that the company says includes added skin care, and mikrozid PAA+ wipes, spore-killing wipes based on peracetic acid for disinfecting surfaces of medical devices.

Earlier inventions shaped the company's history more than its present catalogue. The patent on chlorinated phenols in 1913 produced Sagrotan, and the preservative Euxyl K 100 followed in 1978.

Schülke frames sustainability as part of its mission, linking environmental, social and economic goals. Since June 2022 it has been registered as a participating company with the Science Based Targets initiative, and the company says it uses this science-based approach to align its goals with the Paris climate agreement [4]. The company has switched its office sites and its production site in Germany to green electricity.

On packaging, the company reports concrete examples. It says a change of wipe material in its mikrozid AF Jumbo wipes cut PET use by about 18 percent, or 45 tonnes a year, that its bagless wipes reach 99.5 percent recyclability, and that the octenisan set comes in a fully recyclable cardboard box.

Schülke states that it has held EMAS environmental certification since 1996. It also reports ISO 9001, 14001 and 13485 certificates and GMP, GDP and GVP certifications covering good practice in manufacturing, distribution and vigilance.

The earliest recognition in the company's history is the gilded certificate of honour that the City of Hamburg awarded in 1893 for its work during the cholera epidemic. More recently, the company reports receiving a Gold Medal from the sustainability rating agency EcoVadis in 2022–2023, placing it among the top 4 percent of rated companies in its industry.

Schülke is active. In 2023 CHEManager reported that the company employed around 1,200 people and operated in more than 80 countries. Under its ATHOS-led owners it continues to trade under its own name and to grow through acquisitions, most recently with the purchase of Redditch Medical in September 2025. More than 135 years after its founding, the company remains headquartered in Norderstedt, where its main functions and production are based.