Polpharma Biologics Brand Guidelines: Starogard Roots, Tyruko & a 2025 Move to Zug

A 1935 factory and a 2019 spin-off.

Polpharma Biologics grew out of Polpharma, the Polish pharmaceutical group from Starogard Gdański, south of Gdańsk. English and Polish Wikipedia say Polpharma was founded there in 1935 by Kurt Boskamp, a resident of the Free City of Danzig, as the Polish Chemical and Pharmaceutical Factory “Polpharma,” making painkillers, fever remedies and disinfectants, with aspirin made under licence from Bayer as its main product.

The war changed the factory’s course. During the Second World War and the German occupation of Poland the plant operated as a branch of Bayer, both Wikipedias say; in March 1945 it was largely destroyed, and after the war it was nationalised and rebuilt between 1945 and 1949. Renamed Starogard Pharmaceutical Works in 1951, it joined the state Polfa pharmaceutical union in 1959 and mass-produced Polopiryna, a Polish aspirin. By 1980, English Wikipedia says, the plant employed more than 3,000 people and made a record 2.7 billion tablets in a year, half of them exported to some 60 countries. The Polpharma name returned on 1 December 1995, and the company was privatised in July 2000, with Spectra Management, controlled by the businessman Jerzy Starak, taking the largest stake, English Wikipedia says.

Biologics came later. According to English Wikipedia, Polpharma opened its first biotechnology laboratories in the Gdańsk Science and Technology Park in April 2012, and in 2015 began building a plant for biological medicines in Duchnice, near Warsaw, to serve outside clients. Polpharma also expanded by acquisition in this period, buying a majority stake in the Warsaw drug maker Polfa Warszawa in 2012. Polpharma Biologics dates its own entry into biologics, with dedicated research and development, to 2013–2016. In 2019, by decision of Polpharma’s supervisory board, Polpharma Biologics was spun off from the parent company as an independent legal entity, both Wikipedias say.

Natalizumab and ranibizumab.

The company’s first two products reached patients through partners. Polpharma Biologics lists 2019 as the year of its first out-licensing agreements, 2022 as the year it filed for approval of its lead biosimilars of ranibizumab and natalizumab, and 2023 as the year of their first approvals and launches in key markets.

Natalizumab became the headline. On 24 August 2023 the US Food and Drug Administration approved Tyruko (natalizumab-sztn), which it described as the first biosimilar to Tysabri, for relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis. Polpharma Biologics lists Tyruko as its natalizumab biosimilar, referencing Biogen’s Tysabri, with Sandoz as its global commercial partner.

Its ranibizumab biosimilar, sold as Ranivisio and referencing Novartis’s Lucentis, is an ophthalmology product. The company says it is commercialised through Bioeq AG, a joint venture between Polpharma Biologics and Formycon, with partners including Teva and MS Pharma. The pipeline on its website adds biosimilar programmes for guselkumab, ocrelizumab and vedolizumab. In July 2026 Teva and Polpharma Biologics announced a global licensing agreement for the company’s proposed biosimilar to Ocrevus (ocrelizumab), in intravenous and subcutaneous forms. Under it, Polpharma Biologics keeps development and manufacturing, while Teva handles regulatory submissions and, upon approval, sales in markets including the United States, Europe, Brazil and Canada.

How biosimilar makers present themselves.

Biosimilar makers sell medicines that most people only ever meet as a pack in a pharmacy or a hospital ward, so their public image is built from the places where those medicines are made. Their websites and reports favour gleaming steel bioreactors, vials moving along blue-lit filling lines, scientists in gowns and hoods, and close-ups of prefilled syringes and autoinjector pens. The pictures signal scale and control rather than any single product.

The category is young. The European Medicines Agency’s record shows that the marketing authorisation for Celltrion’s Remsima, a biosimilar of the antibody infliximab, was issued on 10 September 2013, and English Wikipedia describes it as the first biosimilar monoclonal antibody approved by the EMA. Since then a group of companies in Asia, Europe and North America has built ranges of biosimilars, each sold under a brand name of its own, alongside the corporate names covered in this guide.

Their messaging leans on access. Celltrion states a mission of “a healthier tomorrow where no patients are left untreated”; Samsung Bioepis says it makes “quality-assured biologic medicines more accessible, more quickly.” Celltrion’s brand page ties its green to trust. Trade meetings such as the GRx+Biosims conference and the BIO International Convention are where the sector’s companies present their pipelines and meet partners.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each maker — who founded it, who owns it, and which approvals and deals dated sources record — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word.

A 2025 split and a Swiss base.

In autumn 2025 the business split in two. European Pharmaceutical Review reported on 1 October 2025 that Polpharma Biologics was demerging into two independent companies. The biosimilars business kept the Polpharma Biologics name and is run from Switzerland; the contract development and manufacturing side became Rezon Bio, which took over the plants in Gdańsk and Duchnice. Polpharma Biologics said it chose Switzerland as “a strong biotech hub,” close to its business partners and to industry talent. The magazine reported that Rezon Bio’s two Polish sites, both audited by the EMA and the FDA, were to have mirrored capabilities built on single-use systems, and Rezon Bio’s new chief executive, Adriana Kiędzierska-Mencfeld, said the business stood on a record that included two biosimilars launched worldwide through partners.

Today the company, as Polpharma Biologics International AG, operates from Zug, with Anjan Selz as chief executive. Its website calls it “a pure-play biosimilar company” that takes programmes “from concept to commercial supply,” with in-house leadership directing a partner network. The site counts two approved biosimilars and eight partners worldwide, and names Emmanuelle Lepine as chair of its board of directors. The history still reaches back to Starogard: the website timeline begins in 1935, the year Polpharma was founded, and its “About us” page speaks of “one strong legacy, redesigned as the next generation of biosimilar execution.” The parent group marked its 90th anniversary in 2025 with a series of posters by the Polish graphic artist Andrzej Pągowski, tracing nine decades of company history against the history of Poland, English Wikipedia says.

For a design guide, Polpharma Biologics shows a young name carrying an old industrial lineage into a lean, partner-led business. Compare Sandoz, its natalizumab partner, and Formycon, its partner in Bioeq. For this guide we use a Baltic navy, a cool slate and an amber with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

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