Historical development of the pharmaceutical industry in Spain prior to Transition

Abstract

Max Weber (1864-1920), in his classic Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, tried to justify the unequal industrial development of the different European countries based on the religious division of the continent as result of the Lutheran Reformation; According to their approach, the establishment of Protestantism in the north and centre and Catholicism in the south became the northern areas prosperous and the southern areas depressed, encouraging a tendency in the Protestant countries towards factory work, in opposition to the Catholic preference for craftsmanship. As far as the pharmaceutical industry was concerned, this approach led to two different models: the Central European model, Protestant-inspired, and the Mediterranean model, established in mainly Catholic countries such as Spain. The pharmaceutical industry was the driving force behind the new therapeutics that emerged during the 19th century, and it did so by acting on the two fundamental components of the drug: composition and presentation; while the Central European and Anglo-Saxon countries were inclined to promote the composition, the Mediterranean pharmaceutical industry channelled its efforts towards the final consumer product, the “pharmaceutical speciality”. Taking this framework into account, our intention is to offer a general overview of the Spanish pharmaceutical industry prior to the Transition, based on a series of stages ranging from the emergence of drugstore pharmacies in the mid-19th century to the establishment of pharmaceutical laboratories during Franco’s regime, including the classification of what we know as industrial medicines (“secret remedies”, “specific” and “pharmaceutical specialities”), their legal recognition (Stamp Act and health registration), their raw materials and main pharmaceutical forms.