From then until now

Company history

Early years

The company was founded in 1956 by Emil Hevert and his wife Dorothea as “Hesopharm Pharmazeutische Erzeugnisse” (Hesopharm Pharmaceutical Products) in Sobernheim, a small town in the sunny wine region of the Nahe River.

Originally from the Rhineland, the pharmacist had supervised distribution for the pharmaceutical company Mauch-Göppingen some years before he decided in 1956, together with his wife, to build their own pharmaceutical company in Sobernheim. The goal was economic independence and the ambitious plan to put his many years of experience into making his own products.

Through his work at Mauch Emil Hevert had become familiar with the procedures and remedies of the famous naturopath Pastor Emanuel Felke. Felke had been close friends in his later years with the founder of Mauch, the pharmacist Dr. Richard Mauch, and had had him produce his “Felke-Complexmittel” (complex remedies) since 1922-23.

It is not by chance that Hevert was founded where it was – Sobernheim was where Felke’s practice was located for many years. The Felke Association, which was formed from the many Felke societies, and which Emil Hevert helped found, was also located there. Building on this tradition, “Felke’s city”, as it is also called, received the status of a spa town in 1995 and has been called “Bad” Sobernheim since then. To this day, Bad Sobernheim, with its spa hotels, is the center for Felke therapy which uses the well-known natural remedies of light, air, water, clay and a natural food diet in addition to homeopathy.

Through his extensive connections to therapists in the field of naturopathy and his many years of experience with medicinal products, it was possible for Emil Hevert to put together a selected range of homeopathic and phytotherapeutic preparations for the new family business. Many of the formulas originate from former students of Pastor Felke and are still a part of the Hevert product range today.

Now Hevert was a “newcomer” among the already well-established manufacturers of natural remedies and he had to create a name for himself, slowly at first. Only through great personal commitment and the tireless support of his wife, Dorothea, was it possible for Emil Hevert to build up his business of manufacturing and selling his own preparations and continue to manage the distribution of the medicinal products of other manufacturers.

Unfortunately, he was not granted long to see his own company grow. He died in 1957 at the age of 56, leaving behind his wife and two sons, Wolfgang and Uwe, who were 10 and 2 years old.

Hevert becomes established

Following the premature death of her husband, the young widow Dorothea Hevert continued to manage and build the company in order to ensure a living for herself and her two sons. The capable daughter of a farming family suceeded in this by cultivating the contacts established by her husband with traditional healers, doctors and pharmacists with great perseverance and skill, and saw to the distribution of the preparations herself. Although she undertook long journeys through all of Germany for this purpose, she also oversaw production, which, with the help of a female pharmacist and a few employees, took place on the ground floor of the family home.

Through her close contact with therapists, it was possible to complement the product range further with homeopathic and phytotherapeutic preparations proven in practice, and soon the production facility in her house had to be expanded by putting on an addition. By selectively addressing influential therapists and working groups such as iridologists and the Felke Association, Dorothea Hevert was able to establish the Hevert products in the market and secure a loyal following for the company.

After a long legal battle due to similarity of name with the Helopharm company in Berlin, the name “Hesopharm” was abandoned in 1963 and the company was renamed “Hevert Pharmazeutische Erzeugnisse” (Hevert Pharmaceutical Products).

In 1972, Wolfgang, the eldest son, joined the company’s management at her side and began to take the destiny of the company in hand as its production manager. Wolfgang Hevert had studied pharmacy in Berlin with a view to his future role in the family business and completed his doctorate there.

Together with his mother, he put all his energy into building the company and expanding its production capacities, so that the company was able to move out of the family house on Kirchstrasse and into a new production and administration building on Eckweilerstrasse in Sobernheim in 1975. This building, which would be the Hevert headquarters for over 20 years, had been built according to the pharmaceutical standard of GMP guidelines and provided 1400 square meters of space.

In the mid-1970s, Hevert reinforced its presence at important natural health trade shows and conventions and soon began to offer its own seminars.

After the youngest son, Uwe Hevert, joined the company in 1984 as its marketing manager, the legal framework of the company, which had continued to be managed as a sole proprietorship, was too confining. Therefore, in 1986, the company incorporated as a GmbH & Co. KG. under the joint management of Dorothea, Wolfgang and Uwe Hevert.

Wolfgang Hevert worked, in addition to his work as a pharmacist at the company, to master the therapeutic side of the application of medicinal products as well. And so he also completed medical school in Mainz and then spent several years in private practice as a general practitioner specializing in naturopathic treatment in Wiesbaden, receiving his doctorate in 1984.

At the company, after the move to the production facilities on Eckweilerstrasse, he devoted himself especially to the expansion of the product range, which soon included, in addition to oral homeopathic complex remedies and single remedies, phytopharmaceuticals and medicinal teas, also numerous formulas that he had developed for injectable homeopathic preparations.

The wide range of treatment concepts developed by Dr. Hevert at that time were tailored entirely to the needs of physicians specializing in naturopathic treatments and alternative health practitioners. Only in the second half of the 1980s did Hevert target the product range more toward pharmacies and the growing self-medication market.

The new German drug law (AMG) adopted in 1976 would have far-reaching consequences for the Hevert company. The AMG, which came into effect on January 1, 1978, introduced a mandatory approval procedure for all medicines and required pharmaceutical companies to retroactively submit all products that had been on the market before that date for testing for quality, efficacy and safety in order to obtain final approval, which is referred to as re-registration.

By the mid-1980s, because of the rapid growth of the company and the large product range offered, the main building in Sobernheim was no longer large enough, and so a high-bay warehouse was built in the nearby industrial park and Hevert moved there in 1986.

Establishment and development under Dr. med. Wolfgang Hevert

In 1990, Dr. Hevert assumed the sole management of the company as Managing Director.

In the following years, his work went hand in hand with the effort to re-register the company’s products, which had permeated his entrepreneurial and political activities since 1978. Because a large number of Hevert preparations were based on old tried and tested formulas and had been on the market before 1978, these products had received only a fictitious approval and had to go through a re-registration process regulated by the German federal health authority (and later the German Federal Institute for Drugs and Medical Devices).

So it fell to Dr. Hevert to make the large product range of the Hevert company fit for the future and to not simply accept the impending shakeout and culling of proven natural healing remedies. Not only for his own company, but for the whole market, he campaigned on all fronts for a liberal definition of the legal framework and for the preservation of the largest possible diversity of naturopathic preparations and active ingredients.

The crowning moment and proof of the Hevert company’s success was the opening of a new, state-of-the-art pharmaceutical facility in 1996. This production and administration building has been the headquarters of the company since then. It is surrounded by vineyards and a park designed by Dr. Hevert himself, and located in Nussbaum, a neighboring community of Bad Sobernheim.

A complete surprise to all, Dr. Wolfgang Hevert died on March 20, 2003, shortly before his 56th birthday. With energy, a willingness to take risks, vision and great dedication, he turned the pharmaceutical company Hevert into a prestigious and important company in the field of naturopathy. The driving force behind his life’s work was to provide therapists, pharmacists and patients with useful preparations and to fight for the success of naturopathy at the professional and political levels.

Family business in the third generation

In 2003, Mathias Hevert, the eldest son of Wolfgang Hevert, became the third generation to take over the management of Hevert-Arzneimittel. He and his two siblings and Hevert shareholders, Marcus and Sarah Hevert, both of whom were still minors at the time, were able to call upon the wisdom of an experienced trio of advisory board members. The advisory board continues to assist the family business to this day, particularly in the areas of law, marketing/sales and finance.

Re-registration kept the young Managing Director and his family business busy until the early 2000s. The regulatory requirements had become stricter, and the process of maintaining authorizations of medicinal products over the years involved an enormous amount of work. Then, in 2004, all non-prescription preparations ceased to be covered by reimbursement by the statutory health insurance providers. In financial terms, this was an entirely new situation that subjected the extensive Hevert product range of around 500 preparations to scrutiny. Which preparations had promising market potential? How good was the composition, and thus capability, of specific formulations? How difficult was it to obtain re-registration for a preparation? The answers to these questions and others resulted in the Hevert range being cut down from 500 preparations in 2003 to around 100. Treasured old products had to be discontinued to make the family business financially viable.

With the future very much in mind, Mathias Hevert spent the years after that focusing on opening up new sales channels. A dedicated field service was gradually established, direct links to pharmacies were expanded and the company began collaborating with mail-order pharmacies.

Mathias Hevert’s goal was then, and still is, to further expand the leading position of the family-run company in the German naturopathy market and to make it one of the world’s leading companies for naturopathy. In 2005, Hevert joined the European Coalition on Homeopathic and Anthroposophic Medicinal Products (ECHAMP), which advocates for the marketability of homeopathic and anthroposophic medicinal products at EU level. Mathias Hevert has been a member of the Board of Management of ECHAMP since 2013.

In 2008, the company celebrated the first export of Hevert preparations to Belarus. This marked a milestone for the family-run company with strong local links in the Nahe Valley. Other export markets were subsequently accessed in North and South America, Europe and Asia.

Hevert continued to develop rapidly in organizational terms as well. The business grew steadily, and requirements became increasingly exacting, leading to a top management level – the Hevert Executive Committee – being installed in 2009. The Hevert Executive Committee is composed of the heads of six divisions—Company Services, Marketing, National and International Sales, Scientific & Regulatory Affairs, Supply Chain Management, and Quality Unit—as well as the managing directors. A body of employee representatives (the MIV) was set up at the same time. As the most important link between employees, the Executive Committee and the Human Resources department, it works closely with those groups, very much in keeping with the Hevert motto of “Naturally successful together.”

Just one year later, Hevert began a comprehensive sustainability management program as part of corporate social responsibility. Since then, a corporate mission statement with a defined self-image and fundamental principles has played a crucial role in shaping the strategy and direction of the family business. Hevert would like to openly set out for all stakeholders, especially its customers, how the issue of sustainability is experienced within the company and to motivate other companies in their efforts to become sustainable. The aim is to have a beacon function in regards to environmental protection, sustainable business practices, and acting responsibly with respect to employees and the community.

Find out more about the family-run company’s priorities as part of its comprehensive sustainability strategy here.

In 2014, Marcus Hevert, the younger son of Wolfgang Hevert, became Managing Director alongside his brother Mathias. They now head up the management team together. This came after the Hevert family holding, HG Holding GbR, was established. The company management is conducted in equal parts by the shareholders of the Holding, Mathias, Marcus, and their younger sister Sarah Hevert. Two shareholders, Marcus and Mathias Hevert, act as managing directors.

The brothers are investing in the future of the company’s sites, with an extension to the production building in Nussbaum opening in 2012. This was followed by a gradual expansion and modernization work to ensure the continued viability of the production of tablets and liquid medicinal products at the corporate headquarters with a comprehensive GMP upgrade (GMP: good manufacturing practice) , as well as the start of in-house cultivation of medicinal plants. The aim of this was to make sure that current and future customers could be supplied with preparations of consistently high quality. Hevert has also operated its own development laboratory since 2017. There, existing formulations are examined with the aim of identifying potential for optimization. New products intended to meet all manner of patient needs are created there.

The decision of the Hevert brothers to open another site was a further milestone in Hevert’s history of success. The company added another location in 2017 with its office in Berlin. Hevert’s Berlin office serves as a space for discussion with policy makers, customers, business partners, and opinion leaders and is also an attractive office location for employees.

The company has been a symbol of naturopathic expertise for over 65 years now and continues on its path of success. In addition to treatment with naturopathic medicinal products, the Hevert Executive Committee believes that the future of the range lies in micronutrient preparations and dietary supplements in particular. The combination of knowledge of traditional healing and the latest academic findings offers potential for some very interesting new preparations and treatment methods. The family business has therefore been working hard in recent years on numerous new active ingredient compositions, particularly in prevention.