Almirall Brand Guidelines: A 1943 Barcelona Laboratory Turned Dermatology Specialist

Named after its pharmacist.

Almirall was founded in Barcelona in 1943 by Antoni Gallardo i Carrera, according to the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana. The company did not take its founder’s name: it adopted that of its pharmaceutical director, Víctor Almirall i Riu, as the law of the time required, the encyclopedia says. Commercial and industrial activity began the following year, which is why English Wikipedia gives 1944 as the founding date while Spanish Wikipedia, like the encyclopedia, gives 1943 for the laboratory and 1944 for the start of trading.

In Catalan the word almirall also means admiral, so the company shares its name with the naval rank. Until 1994 the head office occupied several buildings in Barcelona’s Gràcia district, the encyclopedia says, before the company moved to a new headquarters in the city.

Spanish Wikipedia says research and development began at the end of the 1950s. The 1970s brought a run of new sites in Catalonia: a chemical plant at Sant Celoni in 1970, production at Sant Andreu de la Barca in 1971 and Sant Just Desvern in 1973, and a research centre at Sant Feliu de Llobregat in 1971, according to the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana. English Wikipedia says the company’s first product from its own research, the digestive medicine clebopride, was launched in Spain in 1979.

The 1980s were years of acquisitions inside Spain. Spanish Wikipedia names Funk and Berenguer Beneyto in 1983, Infale in 1986 and Farmasimes in 1990, along with the Belgian company Sintesa, which became Almirall’s Belgian subsidiary. It also launched the antacid Almax in 1984, a name Spanish Wikipedia calls famous.

From Almirall Prodesfarma back to Almirall.

The largest change of the 1990s was a merger. In 1997 Almirall combined with the Prodesfarma group, founded in 1960 by Antoni Vila i Casas, to form Almirall Prodesfarma, the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana says. The company returned to the name Laboratorios Almirall in 2006 and became simply Almirall in 2009, according to the same source.

Expansion abroad followed. English Wikipedia says Almirall opened a Portuguese subsidiary in 1993, a Mexican one and a French affiliate in 2001, then subsidiaries in Italy in 2002 and Germany in 2003, and in Austria, Poland, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Switzerland in 2008. In 2006 it added a research centre at Bad Homburg in Germany through the purchase of Sofotec, the encyclopedia says, and in 2005 it took the European rights to Sativex, English Wikipedia says.

In 2007 Almirall listed its shares on the Spanish stock market and bought Hermal, a European prescription company specialising in dermatology that Spanish Wikipedia says had belonged to Reckitt Benckiser. Spanish Wikipedia adds that Almirall was part of the IBEX 35 index from June 2020 to June 2022. Through the listing, the Gallardo family has kept control of the company, the encyclopedia says.

Family leadership has continued. In May 2022 Carlos Gallardo Piqué, of the founding family, became non-executive chairman, and six months later he also took over executive management, according to English and Spanish Wikipedia.

How the sector presents itself.

Europe’s mid-sized drug makers tend to present themselves through their origins. Many began as a single pharmacist, doctor or industrialist with a laboratory, and their corporate histories still open with a founder, a town and a first product. Family holding companies and foundations often remain in the background as long-term shareholders, and the companies’ own timelines give as much space to new factories and research centres as to the medicines that came out of them.

The visual language that follows is restrained. Corporate sites and annual reports favour photographs of scientists at the bench, production lines seen through glass, and patients in ordinary settings — at home, at work, outdoors — rather than in hospital. Long-serving research campuses, some in use for half a century or more, appear again and again as proof of continuity, alongside newer laboratories in biotech districts abroad.

Identity systems are usually simple: a short word mark or set of initials, a single deep blue or green as the lead colour, and a clean sans for running text. Because prescription medicines cannot be advertised to the general public in the European Union, much of the visible branding lives at medical congresses rather than in shop windows: the dermatology meeting of the EADV, the multiple sclerosis congress of ECTRIMS and the reproductive-medicine meeting of ESHRE are among the places where these companies set up stands, posters and symposia for specialists.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — who founded it, who owns it, where it makes and researches its medicines, and how its history is told — and marks plainly what rests only on the company’s own word. The palettes and typefaces shown here are our own interpretations, not official brand assets.

A turn to medical dermatology.

Almirall’s current shape dates from the 2010s. English Wikipedia says it began a concentrated focus on medical dermatology in 2013, after buying the American dermatology company Aqua Pharmaceuticals. In 2014 it transferred its respiratory franchise to AstraZeneca, and in 2016 it bought the American company ThermiGen, which took it into aesthetic products, according to the Gran Enciclopèdia Catalana. In 2018 it bought a portfolio of medicines that gave it a position in the American dermatology market, the encyclopedia says.

Its newer medicines follow that line. The European Medicines Agency lists Almirall as the marketing authorisation holder for Ebglyss, a medicine for moderate to severe atopic dermatitis, with the agency’s committee giving its opinion on 14 September 2023 and the marketing authorisation issued on 16 November 2023. English Wikipedia lists Ilumetri, Wynzora and Klisyri among the company’s other products.

Where the products are made is documented in some detail. English and Spanish Wikipedia list two production sites in Spain, the pharmaceutical plant at Sant Andreu de la Barca and the pharmaceutical and chemical plant at Sant Celoni, and a pharmaceutical plant at Reinbek in Germany, which English Wikipedia also describes as a dermatology centre of excellence. Research is based at Sant Feliu de Llobregat. English Wikipedia says the company has about 1,900 employees and a direct presence in 20 countries through subsidiaries in Europe and the United States. Its slogan, Spanish Wikipedia says, is “Feel the Science.”

Research also runs through outside partners. English Wikipedia says Almirall works with Spain’s national research council, the CSIC, and the Barcelona Science Park, has alliances with Imperial College London and the US National Institutes of Health, and has taken part in projects under Europe’s Innovative Medicines Initiative.

For a design guide, Almirall shows how a company named after a pharmacist can redraw itself around a single field while staying in family hands. Compare Esteve, another Barcelona drug maker, and AstraZeneca, which took over Almirall’s respiratory business. For this guide we use a deep plum, a terracotta sand and a warm linen with a serif, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep Almirall’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.