Uriach culminates its transformation and approaches its ambitious goal of invoicing 500 million euros by 2025. The historic Catalan company undertook, after the pandemic, a path of reconversion, from its traditional pharmaceutical business model to a new business line, that of natural consumer healthcare (CHC). Based on over-the-counter medicines, natural products, and food supplements, they aimed to become European leaders in this incipient business segment, with brands such as Fisiocrem, Biodramina, or Aero-red.
With this transformation, the Catalan pharmaceutical company aimed not only to increase its turnover, with the goal of reaching 500 million euros annually by 2025, but also to expand internationally. These objectives have been achieved "even ahead of schedule," as highlighted by its CEO, Oriol Segarra, and allow them to set new ambitious goals for the coming years. The figures confirm this, after having closed the 2024 fiscal year with a turnover of more than 476 million euros, a 54% increase compared to the previous year, and a gross operating profit (EBITDA) of 74 million euros, a 69% increase compared to its previous fiscal year.
In total, the company invoiced 166 million euros more than in 2023, profits driven mainly by the three integrations that the company completed during the 2024 fiscal year, as sales from these companies represented an increase of 130 million euros in turnover. Segarra, however, highlighted the organic growth that the company has experienced in recent years, insisting on the fact that if these acquisitions had not occurred, Uriach would still have increased its revenues by 36 million euros compared to 2023.
With these results, the Catalan company, with more than 185 years of history, closes an "extraordinary year," in the words of its CEO. During this fiscal year, the company, in fact, has closed the largest transaction in its history, announced at the end of 2023 and completed during 2024: the acquisition of the French company Ineldéa. With a turnover of almost 100 million at the time of purchase, the French company is a leader in natural products for children with supplements and vitamins from brands such as PediaKid.
To finance this operation, Uriach opened its capital for the first time, until now solely in the hands of the founding family, to the British private equity fund ICG, with a 30% stake. The capital injection from the British fund has also allowed for the completion of two more acquisitions during 2024: that of the German company Pascoe and the Portuguese brand Bebegel, a medicine indicated for gastrointestinal treatments for children.
The company has subsidiaries in eleven countries and distributes its products to a total of 80 territories worldwideThe Pascoe acquisition has strengthened its presence in Germany, country where it had entered in 2021 with the integration of Sidroga. With this new acquisition,Germany already represents the company's main market,surpassing even Spain, a market where the company had traditionally focused, as well as Italy and France. In addition to these four main countries, the Catalan company, based in Sant Cugat del Vallès, has a direct presence in Portugal, Romania ---with the acquisition of Medimow in 2022---, Austria, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Benelux. Worldwide, Uriach employs 1,400 workers, 350 of whom work from Catalonia.
In fact, more than 75% of its turnover already comes from the international market, as in addition to having subsidiaries in these eleven territories, the pharmaceutical company distributes its products to a total of 80 countries worldwide. An international expansion that Uriach began just a decade ago, with the acquisition of the Italian Laborest in 2025, a territory where it also bought A.R.Fitofarma and Progine (2019).
After these three major operations, the company will now focus on "integrating and digesting them," focusing this year on organic growth and leaving the option of proceeding with new acquisitions for 2026 or 2027. These new integrations would be financed, on the one hand, with the remaining injection of capital from the British fund ICG, and, on the other, with the cash generated in recent years; ruling out, for the moment, the entry of new partners into the shareholding.
These new acquisitions would allow them to strengthen their presence in the markets where they are already present, as well as explore new territories such as the Nordic countries or Eastern Europe. However, for now this year they are focusing on growing 10% and exceeding 500 million euros by 2025, as well as closing the year with an EBITDA of between 80 and 100 million, while redefining their strategic plan for the following years.
The results, according to Segarra, are a testament to the success of undertaking the transformation of their pharmaceutical business four years ago to focus on natural over-the-counter products, "a segment that was expected to become a trend, allowing the population to enjoy a more active and full life, and which would also allow Uriach to grow rapidly." A path of transition and growth that they began with the sale of the B2B business and production factories to the investment fund MCH Private Equity in the summer of 2021, and which they are reinforcing four years later, having even exceeded their expectations.