Grupo Insud
Grupo Insud is a business group fully owned by Argentine shareholders, with a diversified business portfolio and a presence in more than 40 countries. Its main assets are in Argentina, Spain, Italy, China, USA and Switzerland. Its founders and only shareholders are PhD in Biochemistry Silvia Gold and Psychiatrist Hugo Sigman. Grupo Insud operates in the Life Sciences, Agribusiness, Information & Culture, and Nature & Design business segments. Its core business is pharmaceuticals, followed by agroforestry.
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| Private company | |
| Founders | Hugo Sigman, Silvia Gold |
| Headquarters | Buenos Aires , Argentina |
Areas served | Argentina, Spain, Italy, China, USA, Switzerland |
Key people | Hugo Sigman, CEO |
| Services | Life Sciences, Agribusiness, Information and Culture, Nature and Design |
Number of employees | 5,400 |
| Website | www |
Background
In 1977, Silvia Gold and Hugo Sigman created Chemo, a startup established with the aim to produce medicines. This marked the beginning of the holding group. Over the years, the group diversified its business, expanding to other areas, such as agribusiness, cultural industries, nature and design. In 2010, Insud was established, with the goal to integrate and represent the different business interests pursued by Gold and Sigman under a single brand. The acronym INSUD stands for Innovation, Sustainability and Development.
Business areas
Life sciences
Pharmaceuticals is the first and core business of Grupo Insud, representing 80 percent of its revenues. Through its companies Chemo, Exeltis and mAbxience, the Group takes part in all the links of the pharmaceutical industry chain. The Group is a shareholder of the following pharmaceutical companies: Elea, Biogénesis Bagó, Sinergium Biotech, Chemotecnica S.A and Inmunova.
Chemo is the Group’s first company, founded by Silvia Gold and Hugo Sigman in 1977, in Barcelona, Spain. It manufactures active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and generics. It owns 16 manufacturing sites and nine R&D centers worldwide.
Exeltis manufactures and markets branded pharmaceutical products. It has a catalog of more than 300 medicinal products spanning a range of therapeutic lines, including Women’s Health, Respiratory and Cardiology.
mAbxience is the Group’s biotech company. It is engaged in research, development and manufacturing of biosimilars. It has two production plants: in Buenos Aires, Argentina (pharmADN), and in León, Spain, both compliant with Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP).
Agribusiness
Grupo Insud’s second largest activity is value-added primary production in the agricultural and forestry sectors. Pomera Maderas is a forestry-industrial company that owns and runs eucalyptus and pine plantations in Argentina and Paraguay. Its operations are certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). It produces solid wood. Additionally, it works in the genetic improvement of vegetable species with the goal to create more productive forested areas and decrease pressure on native forests.
Garruchos Agropecuaria has farms across Argentina and combines agricultural and cattle-raising activities.
Cabaña Los Murmullos is a cattle ranch that produces breeders, of the Aberdeen Angus and Polled Hereford breeds, for sale, herd improvement and participation in trade shows.
Information and culture
The Group has a footprint in the cultural industry with publishing companies Capital Intelectual and Clave Intelectual, and film production company K&S films.
Capital Intelectual is a publishing company focused on the dissemination of culture and social analysis, based in Argentina. Its publications promote reflection and debate on science, politics, literature, philosophy, sport, and psychology. It has published renowned authors, including Aldo Ferrer, Manuela Carmena, Dante Caputo, Juan Carlos Distéfano, Jorge Fernandez Díaz, Leonardo Padura, Rodolfo Braceli, Alejandro Fabbri, Vicente Muleiro, Sergio Sinay, Pedro Brieger, and Mempo Giardinelli.
The company also publishes the South Cone edition of Le Monde diplomatique. The Dipló was first issued in Argentina in July 1999. The monthly offers a selection of articles translated from the French edition, as well as articles, interviews and reviews by local authors. The South Cone edition is directed by political analyst and journalist José Natanson.
Clave Intelectual is the imprint of Grupo Insud in Spain, established in 2011. It has a clear focus on Spanish-speaking America and reflects the main current-affairs topics, integrating variants of a common language and different cultural, social and geographic nuances.
K&S films is the Group’s film production company. It was established in 2005, when Hugo Sigman partnered with his friend Oscar Kramer, a producer with an extensive track record in the Argentine film industry, and they started a project for the integrated production of feature films. Today, with more than ten years of experience, K&S films works both in Argentina and abroad, acquiring publishing rights, developing scripts, making international coproductions and supporting new Argentine talents. Some of its best known films are: The Clan (2015), Wild Tales (2014), Seventh Floor (2013), The Last Elvis (2012), Chronicle of an Escape (2006), On Probation (2005), The Dog (2004), Kamchatka (film) (2001), and Burnt Money (2000).
Nature and design
Grupo Insud has sustainable businesses in the field of nature and design, including Puerto Valle Hotel, in the Iberá Wetlands; Solantu, a brand of designer objects made of native woods and caiman skins, and Yacaré Porá, a caiman farm located on the premises of the hotel, which leads a program of sustainable preservation and production of the species.
Yacaré Porá is the exclusive caiman farm of Solantu, located on the premises of Puerto Valle Hotel. Its main purpose is the preservation of caiman species in the Corrientes wetlands. Through the ranching technique, the eggs are collected from the wild and breeding occurs under controlled conditions on the farm. Thus, Yacaré Porá can significantly increase the number of specimens in the area and help raise awareness with the population. Additionally, the use of a limited amount of caiman skin for Solantu collections guarantees the economic viability of the entire project and the investment in scientific research for conservation of the species in the long term.
Research and development
Through an extensive global network, Grupo Insud carries out multiple Research and Development (R&D) projects to create high value-added products. In the Life Sciences, the company has, through its firm Chemo, nine R&D Centers globally. Additionally, it has a technological platform for research, development and production of monoclonal antibodies. In the field of Agribusiness, the main areas of focus for its agricultural and forestry activities are genetic improvement and sustainable production. Pomera Maderas produces solid wood and has a program for genetic improvement of vegetable species. Cabaña Los Murmullos is actively engaged in cattle genetics. Additionally, Grupo Insud promotes public-private partnerships through the R&D+I (Research, Development and Innovation[1]) model, fostering effective interaction between basic research and applied research. This model enables articulating scientific research from the public sector with the technological, productive and commercial capabilities of the private sector.
One of the most prominent findings of the consortium is Racotumomab (Vaxira©[2]), a therapeutic vaccine for patients with non-small cell lung cancer, the most common type of lung cancer. This development was led jointly by Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Instituto de Oncología Roffo, Hospital Garrahan, Conicet (National Council of Scientific and Technical Research) of Argentina and Universidad de Buenos Aires, in collaboration with CIM (Center for Molecular Immunology of La Habana) and Laboratorio Elea. The therapeutic vaccine is available in Argentina and has earned the Consortium the Innovation Award to Applied Research (Premio Innovar en Investigación Aplicada).