A global healthcare player

After founding the company in 1962, Mr. Pierre Fabre turned to international expansion at a very early stage, with a first subsidiary created in Spain in 1970. Its headquarters were naturally established in Barcelona, which is 4 hours from Castres. This was followed by other Southern European countries, where the strength of the pharmacy network supported the company’s rapid expansion. The Czech Republic and Poland marked the start of our presence in Eastern Europe in the 1990s. Today, Spain, Italy and Germany are our leading international markets, alongside China.

In 1986, Laboratoires Pierre Fabre created a joint venture with Shiseido, a pioneer and leader in the Asian cosmetics market, to develop the Eau Thermale Avène brand in Japan. The success was immediate and has remained strong. The brand was launched in 2003 in China, where it has since established itself as one of the leading international brands in face care. China has thus become our second largest market for dermo-cosmetics and will tomorrow be the leading market for oncology. 

Laboratoires Pierre Fabre has been established on the American continent since the 1990s, with the opening of dermo-cosmetics subsidiaries in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Brazil and Chile. In 2006, it acquired the Darrow brand, a long-established name in Brazil’s dermo-cosmetics market, produced at the Aréal site near Rio de Janeiro. In 2018, a dermo-cosmetics innovation center dedicated entirely to Latin American skin type opened in Rio de Janeiro. In 2024, a pharmaceutical subsidiary was created in the United States to enter the world’s leading market for oncology and rare diseases.

Laboratoires Pierre Fabre is continuing its expansion in a region where its presence dates back to 1971, with an initial establishment in Tunisia, followed soon after by Algeria, Morocco and Ivory Coast. The Ben Arous plant, located near Tunis, manufactures pharmaceutical products for all African markets. A subsidiary was created in Turkey in 1998, while our presence in the Middle East has grown organically since the 2010s. Its headquarters are based in Dubai.