Our Story
How We Got Started
When at the end of the 50’s of the last century, a family of Italian entrepreneurs in the Italian pharmaceutical field decides to invest in the health sector in Africa, internationalization, diversification and above all, access to care for the populations of the most remote areas of the world, were still all in formation concepts to decline. Rooted in the province of Lucca, in Tuscany, in the family land of origin and in the cultural and economic hearth of Italy, cradle of the Italian and European renaissance, ready to grasp the unmistakable signs of the market changes of the post-war Italian and international new era, the Marcucci’s understand among the firsts, the imminent progressive evolution of the market towards a global set-up. They project their entrepreneurial activities outside the national borders where the ferment of a demand which now show highly expansive in the pharmaceutical field too.
1960s
Signs of this trend are coming ever more insistent in particular from the African countries characterized until then by a traditional medicine and desiring to have access to therapies fruit of the most modern scientific discoveries. Of all, one in particular draws their attention: it is the then Belgian Congo, a country with enormous socio-economic resources that even among the sometimes painful vicissitudes linked to the process of the post-colonial liberation, shows a dynamic demand that suggests strong potential. Under the visionary guidance of the oldest of the two brothers, Leopiero, assisted by the tireless support of his brother Guelfo, thanks to the productive and commercial successful initiatives in the meantime carried out in Italy, starts the challenging operational process of a financial and technological investment that will lead to the definition of the productive and economic structure of the new company.
The Marchitalia brand
We are now in the 60’s and everything is ready for the start of the new company. All what is needed is just to choose its name which of course cannot miss the reference to the national and family origins of the company. That’s finally how was born “Marchitalia”, a brand that in the ideal reference to the family and the nation of origin names, recalls the economic and cultural synergy that has decreed its success. The strategic and operational commitment of the two brothers, soon led Marchitalia to become the main private pharmaceutical enterprise in the country that soon would have become the Zaire. Between the 60s and 70s, one of the largest by extension in Africa, Marchitalia is enriched by a capillary distribution network with pharmacies located throughout the national territory in order to ensure the distribution of products.
1970s and 1980s
Meanwhile, the group of companies belonging to the Marcucci’s, headed by the leader, Farma Biagini, is now increasingly directing its business towards a new sector of strategic products in strong expansion: the derivatives of human blood or so called plasma-derivatives.This strategy is also applied to Marchitalia that in the 70s will mark a new prestigious success with the supply to the government of Zaire of the first turnkey plant for the production of blood products ever made in Africa. In the 80s the Marcucci family concentrates its energies towards consolidating its activities on the European market and prepares to enter the US one. Marchitalia gives up its activities in Zaire and enters a long silent period until 2013 when, as a result of the stock and market changes of the group, the old commitment in the African continent resumes with renewed enthusiasm.
Today mission and vision
Today Marchitalia faces a new ambitious challenge, this time with the creation of a network for the marketing and promotion of pharmaceutical products, at the service of international companies that wish to enter the African market. Based in Tunis, Marchitalia through a vast network of local business partners operating in more than 30 countries ensure nowadays a successful capillary presence of some leading international biopharmaceutical companies in the African continent. With unchanged commitment Marchitalia proudly work at even more ambitious plans currently under development both on the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals & biopharmaceuticals to always bring to the African population new opportunities to improve their health and wellbeing.
