Vifor Pharma

Participant's Lead

Project Staff

Partner Presentation

Vifor Pharma is a fully integrated Swiss speciality pharma company of the Galenica Group. It is based on two main pillars: the business units Rx (prescription products) and Consumer Healthcare (OTC products). Vifor Pharma Rx focuses on research, development, production and marketing of its own pharmaceuticals and on potential in-licensed products in the three main therapeutic fields of anaemia, nephrology (kidney diseases) and autoimmune diseases. Vifor Pharma has a world leading position in oral and intravenous products for iron substitution. Vifor Pharma Consumer Healthcare concentrates on a range of self developed, acquired or in-licensed OTC products that are distributed through own marketing organizations in European key markets. One of the strategic Consumer Healthcare product line is the portfolio of omega-3/-6 products positioned for brain function and health.

Vifor Pharma acquired over the last decade a large experience in the field of the effects of essential fatty acids on brain function and development, mainly with the support of academic research, and more specifically clinical research. In that scope, Vifor Pharma is currently supporting more than 15 clinical projects, starting with interventions during pregnancy looking at the effects of EFAs on the newborn's brain development and function, to clinical trials investigating EFAs effects in children, mainstream school children or children with neurodevelopmental disorders (dyslexia, attention disorders, ADHD, autism, Asperger syndrome). Recently, Vifor Pharma also initiated preclinical research experiments aiming at a better understanding of the effects of EFAs on the above mentioned disorders. In this perspective, the idea of looking more into details at the impact of EFAs (as a nutritional environmental factor) in the scope of the present translational project is of particular interest.