The company was founded 1998 in
Freiburg by Kurt Teubner, who had been working as a manager for Ciba Geigy (now
Novartis). The name Cheplapharm derives from the plant based diuretic Cheplaren, one of the first products Teubner acquired. In 2003, Cheplapharm was bought by the Braun family. The new proprietors moved operations to Mesekenhagen, where Norbert and Dagmar Braun owned another pharmaceutical company, Riemser AG, a spin-off of the
Friedrich Loeffler Institute. branded pharmaceuticals and medical products from multinational and German pharmaceutical companies. Among them are large corporations like
Merck,
F. Hoffmann-La Roche,
AstraZeneca,
Sanofi,
Boehringer Ingelheim and
Johnson & Johnson as well as midsize businesses like
Grünenthal, Klosterfrau or Riemser. Konakion and
Cymevene (a
vitamin K supplement and a virostatic, from F. Hoffmann-La Roche in 2018),
Visudyne (a
photosensitizer used for
photodynamic therapy of the wet form of
macular degeneration, from Novartis in 2018) and
Sotacor/Sotalex (an antiarrhythmic, from
Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2018). Cheplapharm also markets several
over-the-counter remedies of local renown or niche appeal in Germany. Among them are Reisegold (an
antiemetic with
Dimenhydrinate, marketed specifically for motion sickness), the
valerian extract-based sedative Baldrian Dispert, and a number of herbal tinctures from the 'Thüringer' brand formerly owned by Klosterfrau. (2014). The latter company's main product is
Potaba, an urological drug. In 2017, Cheplapharm founded a
joint venture with the German medical technology company Clearum. The venture, by the name of Med-Tec Holding GmbH, is meant to focus on manufacture of medical technology products, research and development. The Takeda portfolio, which comprises 17 products, was the company's largest acquisition to date in terms of scope and purchase price (EUR 450 million). In 2021, all rights to the epilepsy drug Rivotril were acquired from Roche, and Astellas took over the approvals for four branded antibiotics and De Nol, a drug against Helicobacter pylori infections, for Russia, Ukraine and other CIS countries. ==Products==