Beiersdorf

Beiersdorf AG is an international company based in Hamburg, Germany, that develops, manufactures and distributes products in the areas of skin care, wound dressings, and sticking tapes. Beiersdorf reported international sales of over DM 6.2 billion in 1997, up over DM 500 million from its 1996 results. Cosmetic and personal care products accounted for 54.4 percent of the company's sales that year, led by its famous Nivea line of skincare products. The Medical Division, producer of Hansaplast and Curad bandages and Eucerin medicinal creams and salves, accounted for 23.4 percent of sales, while the tesa division, producer of a broad variety of tesa tapes and adhesive products, made up 22.1 percent of 1997 sales. Although concentrated in Germany and Europe, Beiersdorf was active in over 100 markets around the world. The roots of Beiersdorf AG lie in the pharmacy that Paul C. Beiersdorf opened in Hamburg in the fall of 1880. After a while Beiersdorf began working with dermatologist Paul Gerson Unna on the development of a medicated adhesive bandage. Unna had created salves that were effective in promoting the healing of damaged skin. However, no one had been able to develop an effective way to use them on a bandage; the secretions from the skin mixed with the salve and broke it down quickly, ruining its medical efficacy. Beiersdorf solved the problem by spreading a solution of gutta-percha, a substance similar to rubber, on gauze, making it impervious to the skin's moisture. It was a completely new product, a bandage that made possible a precise treatment of skin problems using exact dosages of medication. He gave it the unwieldy name Guttapercha-Pflastermulle, which was eventually shortened to Guttaplaste. Beiersdorf received a patent for his invention on March 28, 1882, the date considered the founding of Beiersdorf AG. Dr. Unna told fellow physicians about Guttaplaste and described it frequently in his publications, and the bandages caught on quickly. Prescriptions for Guttaplaste soon outstripped Beiersdorf's ability to produce them in his pharmacy. In the summer of 1883, he closed it and established a small facility in Altona, a town just outside Hamburg where he could concentrate exclusively on his bandage business. By that time, Beiersdorf was manufacturing 54 different types of bandages. They were manufactured in the literal sense: nine workers produced the materials and medications by hand, then two other employees cut and packaged the bandages and wrote out the labels. Between 1882 and 1890 P. Beiersdorf & Co. began making other products as well: stick-salves, paste sticks, and medicinal soaps. But the adhesive bandage line, which soon grew to include 100 types, remained his bestselling and most important product. In 1890 Beiersdorf's 16-year-old son committed suicide. So shaken was Beiersdorf that in May 1890 he decided to give up his business. The buyer he settled on was a 27-year-old pharmacist from Silesia, Oscar Troplowitz. According to their deal, Troplowitz would pay 60,000 Marks and take over sole ownership in July 1891 after working for a year as Beiersdorf's partner. When Troplowitz arrived in Altona in August 1890 to begin work, however, it was obvious that he and Beiersdorf would have difficulties working together. Troplowitz offered an extra 10,000 Marks to take over immediately and the company changed hands on October 1, 1890. One of the first things Troplowitz did was to modernize Beiersdorf's primitive facilities. In 1892, he purchased a large parcel of land in Hamburg, built a factory, and introduced machine production--in particular for printing labels--which began on November 1, 1892. Troplowitz continued to work closely with Dr. Unna. One of their developments was a refinement of Guttaplaste, another medicated bandage called Paraplast, whose stiff cotton gauze made the gutta-percha solution unnecessary. Troplowitz also set out to create a surgical tape. The problem he faced was developing one that