Zirkulin

Zirkulin is a German brand of over-the-counter herbal medicines and food supplements whose range centres on psyllium husk products, digestive remedies and, more recently, micronutrient concentrates. Its roots go back to a pharmacy in the town of Herdecke in 1913, and the Zirkulin trademark was registered in 1930. Over the following decades the brand moved from the pharmacy counter into drugstores and supermarkets, and its range grew from a single garlic product into a collection of health products organised by everyday concerns such as digestion, sleep and immune defences.

Zirkulin is no longer an independent business. It was acquired by the Frankfurt health-products company WindStar Medical at some point between 2016 and 2020, and since the start of 2025 it has belonged to Merz Lifecare, the consumer health arm of the family-owned Merz Group [5]. The brand continues to trade actively under that ownership, with new products launched in 2025.

The story begins at the Löwen-Apotheke, a pharmacy in Herdecke, where in 1913 the pharmacist Schulte-Herbrüggen set out to turn pharmacy know-how into reliable, marketable medicines that ordinary customers could buy. According to the company, the aim was to carry the precision of pharmacy work over into products accessible to everyone. In 1923 August Röpke took the business forward, introducing in-house manufacturing processes and, as Zirkulin tells it, a deliberate focus on scaling up into a modern pharmaceutical production.

The company itself gives two starting points for its history. Its timeline describes 1913 as the founding of the business, and the brand speaks of herbal medicine expertise going back "more than 100 years". The same timeline states that the history of Zirkulin officially begins with its entry in the German trademark register in 1930, which matches the homepage's description of a brand with almost 100 years behind it [2]. This article follows 1930 as the founding year of the Zirkulin brand, with 1913 as the year its parent pharmacy business began.

The first product sold under the new name was Zirkulin Knoblauch-Perlen, a garlic preparation in pearl form. The company says it quickly became a strong seller. It was advertised with the slogan "Altes Herz wird wieder jung!" ("An old heart becomes young again!"), which made the garlic pearls a defining feature of the brand and carried its name well beyond the pharmacy shelf. Herbal active ingredients and products aimed squarely at everyday consumers shaped the brand from the outset.

From 1938 Zirkulin products were no longer sold only in pharmacies. They also became available in drugstores as non-prescription medicines, which brought them to a much wider public. Building on its early focus on the heart and circulation, the company widened the range to include products for digestion, immune defences, and sleep and relaxation.

In the 1960s the brand sharpened its visual identity. The packaging design became cleaner and the brand adopted the characteristic yellow it still uses. Through the following decades the range kept growing: established products such as an artichoke preparation were developed further, and new products were added. The company describes this period as laying the foundation of the brand in its present form, summed up in the motto "rundum gut für mich", roughly "all-round good for me".

With many of its products focused on the digestive system, Zirkulin states that by 2021 it had become the number one brand in the stomach and gut category of the German market [2]; this ranking comes from the company and has not been confirmed independently. Over the same period the portfolio was extended with products for the stomach, muscles and movement, immune defences, and the liver and gallbladder.

A comprehensive design relaunch followed in 2023. With it, the company repositioned Zirkulin as what it calls a modern "Well-Health" umbrella brand, a name for a family of products covering general well-being rather than a single remedy. In 2025 the brand launched the Zirkulin Vital Mikronährstoff-Konzentrat, a micronutrient concentrate that marked its entry into the vitamins and minerals segment.

For most of the twentieth century Zirkulin developed out of its Herdecke pharmacy origins. Its modern ownership history is tied to WindStar Medical, a Frankfurt-area maker of medical products and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals for drugstores, supermarkets and pharmacies. The media group ProSiebenSat.1 bought WindStar Medical in 2016 [7], and in 2018 WindStar became part of NuCom Group, a ProSiebenSat.1 subsidiary in which the investment firm General Atlantic held a minority stake.

During the ProSiebenSat.1 years WindStar bought Zirkulin as an over-the-counter brand. ProSiebenSat.1 singled out the purchase of Zirkulin as a key part of WindStar's growth, alongside digitalising the business and opening new sales channels [6]. The public announcements do not give the exact year of the Zirkulin purchase; they place it within the period of ProSiebenSat.1 ownership. Over those years WindStar's revenue rose by around 80 percent, from EUR 70 million in 2016 to an expected EUR 127 million in 2020, and its enterprise value grew 2.4-fold, a figure that ProSiebenSat.1 said also took the Zirkulin acquisition into account [6]. The media group also credited advertising on its own television channels with raising the profile of WindStar's brands.

On 22 October 2020 ProSiebenSat.1 announced that NuCom was selling its 92 percent stake in WindStar Medical to the private equity investor Oakley Capital, which also bought the remaining 8 percent from minority shareholders [7]. The deal valued WindStar at EUR 280 million. As part of the transaction, WindStar and ProSiebenSat.1 agreed a multi-year advertising partnership.

The next change came four years later. Under an agreement between Merz and Oakley Capital reached in October 2024, WindStar Medical and Merz Lifecare were combined at the turn of the year into a new holding company, Merz Lifecare Holding GmbH. The merger took effect on 1 January 2025 once regulators had approved it [8]. The Merz Group holds the majority, while Oakley Capital, WindStar's previous owner, became a minority shareholder [5]. In its announcement, Merz described WindStar's health brands, SOS and Zirkulin, as largely complementary to its own portfolio. Trade press described the combined business as one of the largest makers of branded over-the-counter health products in Germany, Austria and Switzerland [8]. The holding is managed by Xenia Barth and Steven Potschull, the managing directors of Merz Lifecare.

Today Zirkulin is a brand of Merz Lifecare, which in turn is a corporate brand of Merz Consumer Care GmbH, a Merz Group company based in Frankfurt am Main [3]. Its sister brands within Merz Lifecare include SOS, tetesept, Merz Spezial and Brooklyn Soap Company. The Merz Group itself is a diversified health company that described itself in January 2025 as family-owned for more than 116 years; its businesses include Merz Aesthetics, Merz Therapeutics and Merz Consumer Care, and it reported 4,727 employees in 30 countries for the 2023/24 financial year.

Zirkulin presents itself as a brand for natural, holistic well-being. The company says its experience lies in combining traditional plant knowledge with modern science, and it describes its products as gentle companions for everyday health. Its stated mission is to support people on the way to natural, all-round well-being in a way that is simple, effective and in harmony with nature. The current tagline, "Rundum gut. Für mich." ("All-round good. For me."), echoes the motto the brand adopted in the 1960s.

Rather than grouping products by format, the brand organises its range by health topics, on the reasoning that needs change with life stage, stress and personal priorities. The current categories are stomach and digestion, metabolism, vitamins and minerals, sleep and relaxation, immune defences, and muscles and movement. According to the brand's website, more than two million customers buy Zirkulin products every year [1].

The brand is sold mainly through drugstores and supermarkets as well as online, including through an Amazon brand store, and its website has separate versions for Austria and Switzerland. Sustainability commitments are set at the level of the parent company: Merz Lifecare says its own research and development department works to create products that are good for people and the planet. No separate sustainability goals for Zirkulin are documented.

Zirkulin's range consists of herbal medicines and food supplements; it contains no skincare or cosmetic products [4]. Psyllium husk, a plant fibre used to support digestion, runs through several of its best-selling products, including organic psyllium husks, psyllium husk capsules and ground psyllium husks. Other products include a Bitter Elixir, a Leber Elixir for the liver, stomach chewable tablets and lozenges, apple cider vinegar and nettle capsules, propolis cough lozenges for adults and children, Manuka honey gums, a devil's claw preparation, castor oil, a small enema, and sleep products sold as Schneller Einschlafen and Schlaf Komplex.

The newest line is built around micronutrients. The Vital Mikronährstoff-Konzentrat launched in 2025 was followed by Vital Mikronährstoff Super Greens, a powder the company promotes as a daily nutrient supplement with more than 35 ingredients. According to the brand, it combines eight green foods, among them wheatgrass, spirulina, chlorella, nettle and spinach, with further plant extracts, added vitamins and minerals, and inulin as a source of dietary fibre.

Several products, including the organic psyllium husks, organic psyllium seeds and the Bitter Elixir, carry an organic label, and the brand's legal notice names a German organic inspection body. Because the range includes medicines, the same notice lists the regional health authorities in Hesse responsible for supervising them.

Zirkulin is an acquired brand that remains commercially active. It has been owned by Merz Lifecare, part of the Merz Group, since the WindStar Medical merger took effect on 1 January 2025, and before that by WindStar Medical under ProSiebenSat.1 and then Oakley Capital. The brand launched its Vital Mikronährstoff-Konzentrat in 2025 and has since introduced Vital Mikronährstoff Super Greens. Its website, operated by Merz Consumer Care GmbH in Frankfurt am Main, carries a 2026 Merz Lifecare copyright notice, and the brand maintains Instagram and TikTok accounts.