SYMBIO

SYMBIO is the shared name prefix of the product lines made by SymbioPharm GmbH, a German company in Herborn that develops medicines, food supplements and a small range of skincare built around bacteria. Its main business is probiotic medicine for the gut, the airways and the immune system. In beauty, the name is best known through Symbio DERMAL, a cream and a foam for very dry skin that contain a preparation of inactivated bacteria. The company dates its work to 1954 [4], while German pharmacy trade press gives 1974 as the year the company itself was founded [13].

SymbioPharm was acquired in 2023 by Klinge, a manufacturer from Holzkirchen owned by the Strüngmann family, according to the trade publication apotheke adhoc [12]. It continues to trade under its own name, and its products are sold mainly through pharmacies.

The company's story is tied to the small town of Herborn. SymbioPharm presents the year 1954 as a fixed part of its identity, and "since 1954" appears in its page footers and on its company pages. Its German-language company page frames that history as a long head start: interest in gut bacteria may be a trend today, it says, but in Herborn knowledge of the bacteria that live in and on people, and healing with natural, bacteria-based preparations, have been common practice since 1954.

The trade press tells the story in two stages. According to apotheke adhoc, a small group of physicians set up a microbiological laboratory in Herborn an der Dill, and SymbioPharm as a company followed twenty years later, in 1974 [13]. Read together, the two dates describe different things rather than contradicting each other: 1954 marks the laboratory that the business counts as its beginning, and 1974 marks the founding of the company. This article follows the company's own 1954 date, which the company directory bionity.com also gives [11].

For most of its history SymbioPharm has been a pharmaceutical business rather than a beauty one. Its best-known product is Symbioflor, which the company describes as the first probiotic medicine in Germany [3]. The directory bionity.com describes Symbioflor 1 as one of the very first probiotic pharmaceuticals worldwide [11]. Symbioflor 1 is aimed at recurring inflammation of the sinuses and bronchi, and Symbioflor 2 at irritable bowel syndrome.

Around these medicines the company built a wider range. By its own account, SymbioPharm now offers more than 20 microbiotic food supplements, dietary products and cosmetics alongside its medicines. The SymbioLact family of lactic acid bacteria supplements makes up much of that range, with products for children, sleep, immunity and digestion.

Skincare arrived as an extension of the same idea. Symbio DERMAL was first sold as a cream, and in October 2022 a foam version joined it. The company has also moved into what it calls precision probiotics, products built on specifically selected bacterial strains. Its press releases describe SymbioLife Satylia as the first precision probiotic and link it to an exclusive partnership with TargEDys [9]. In 2022 the company held the fifth edition of its SymbioKongress, a meeting devoted to precision probiotics.

Counting from 1954, the company reached seven decades of activity in 2024, and its homepage speaks of "seven decades" of work on the microbiome.

Before the takeover, bionity.com described SymbioPharm as part of a privately held group that also included an institute for microbiome diagnostics (the Institute of Microecology), an outpatient medical centre and SymbioVaccin, which works on personalised therapies [11]. The company itself points to this setup as a strength, citing the combination of microbiome testing and product development within its own group, together with its own production facilities in Germany [4].

According to apotheke adhoc, the acquisition by Klinge followed shortly after a change of management in mid-2023 [12]. Klinge is a manufacturer based in Holzkirchen and belongs to the Strüngmann family.

SymbioPharm sums up its mission in three words: "Heilen mit Bakterien", or healing with bacteria. The company says its aim is to maintain health and treat disease with the help of probiotic bacteria, and that it researches the human microbiome, the community of microbes living in and on the body, in order to develop treatments for gut health, respiratory health and the immune system.

The company describes a long collaboration with therapists and presents itself as an advocate of natural treatment with living bacteria. It also stresses diagnostics and research alongside its products. In its words, a healthy microbiota forms the foundation of overall well-being.

Its skincare follows the same logic. On a page about the skin's microbiome, SymbioPharm explains that skin, like the gut, is home to billions of bacteria that together form the skin flora. This invisible layer, the company says, supports the skin's barrier and even helps train parts of the immune system. It adds that more microbes live on human skin than there are people on Earth. When skin lacks its natural fats, the page explains, it loses more water, becomes dry, flaky and rough, and lets irritants in more easily. Symbio DERMAL is presented as specialised care for this kind of dry skin, using the company's established bacterial strains together with conventional moisturising ingredients.

The cosmetics range is small. Its centre is Symbio DERMAL, which SymbioPharm calls microbiotic skin care, in two formats: Symbio DERMAL Creme, sold in a 75 ml pump dispenser, and Symbio DERMAL Schaum, a 120 ml foam available since October 2022. Both are intended for dry, itchy and flaky skin, including skin prone to atopic eczema.

The defining ingredient in both products is a bacterial lysate from Escherichia coli and Enterococcus faecalis. A lysate is a preparation made from bacteria that have been broken down and inactivated, so the product contains bacterial components rather than living organisms. The company describes it as a microbiotic active complex. The cream combines it with almond oil, evening primrose oil, avocado oil, jojoba wax, shea butter, dexpanthenol, vitamin E acetate, hyaluronic acid and squalane. The foam uses a lighter list built on shea butter, squalane, dexpanthenol, vitamin E acetate, hyaluronic acid and allantoin.

Both products carry the five-star seal of the testing institute dermatest and the seal of the German Allergy and Asthma Association (DAAB). SymbioPharm also reports results from an observational study, in which product users are followed in everyday use. According to the company, the study found that the skin's moisture loss fell by about 22 percent on average, skin moisture rose by almost 50 percent, and dryness and flaking dropped by almost 50 percent [5].

Beyond Symbio DERMAL, the company's personal-care products include Symbiofem Intim, a care product for the vaginal and bladder mucosa, and Parodolium, a mouthwash concentrate. Its pharmaceutical side follows stricter manufacturing rules: the company states that its Symbioflor medicines are certified under Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP), the quality standard for producing medicines, and it also cites the ISO 9001 quality-management standard [6].

SymbioPharm says all of its products can be bought in pharmacies or ordered for home delivery. Outside Germany it works through distribution partners. Its international page lists 14 partner companies, covering much of Europe, including Austria, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Hungary and the Benelux countries, as well as Russia, Azerbaijan, Taiwan, Colombia and Guatemala [7]. The figures vary between sources: the company's about page speaks of 16 countries, while a 2024 trade press report referred to 15 international markets.

SYMBIO's maker, SymbioPharm, has been owned by Klinge since 2023 and continues to operate under its own name from Herborn. As of October 2026 its website listed recent product launches, including SymbioLact Pro Schlaf for sleep, SymbioLife Blutzucker for blood sugar and Symbiofem Intim. The company was also recruiting participants for a clinical study, abbreviated SymSF2, of an approved probiotic medicine for irritable bowel syndrome with diarrhoea. Symbio DERMAL remains part of the range as the company's main skincare product.