The Sinupret Story: Interview with Prof. Dr. Michael A. Popp

I joined the company Bionorica at a very young age, and I must say I jumped completely into cold water because I had no idea what I would find.

My biggest problem at the beginning was that, due to the entire Contag affair, the entire pharmaceutical market in Europe had to be re-evaluated. That's why it was decided to introduce a so-called re-registration process. The preparations at the time hadn't been approved, only registered — so no efficacy testing had been conducted, and naturally no safety testing either. That was the problem. There was a transitional period until 1990 for re-registration, and I had to discover with astonishment that by 1987 relatively little had been done on this front. Without re-registration, I would have had no more medicines and therefore no more business foundation.

So the first thing was to secure the business model, and that only worked through re-registration — or actually, the agency recommended choosing new approval instead of re-registration, because it would be processed faster, and indeed it was. This gave me much earlier insight into where I stood in the process and what was still expected, even though the new approval had a significantly higher bar than re-registration.

Bionorica is active in many markets around the world and has become a market leader in many markets in the field of herbal medicines, measured by package volume. The answer to why is relatively simple: because we went through the re-registration process and decided to pursue new approval, we also had to prove efficacy — which wouldn't have been necessary for re-registration. That essentially forced us to invest in pharmacological and clinical studies. This meant we had the corresponding documentation and could use it to obtain new approvals abroad. We expanded to Asia, to Eastern Europe. Now this is also our success concept: we are the company in the field of herbal medicines with the highest standards, conducting clinical studies according to international guidelines and medical society standards — evidence-based research. And this is our success concept: we don't just make a hollow promise behind our medicines, but we back it up with science, with clinical studies. That is the most important thing in the end, for the doctor who prescribes or recommends us, for the pharmacy that recommends us, and ultimately for the patient who takes our medicines and buys them again because our medicines work.

The idea of developing herbal medicines came from my grandfather. He studied extensively with — I must say — the book on medicinal plants by Leonhart Fuchs, drawing inspiration and ideas from it. He initially focused, before the Second World War, on native plants. That's why all the plants that grow around us here were gathered at that time, processed and used. Today it's quite different: back then they were just ordinary wild-collected plants that were processed. Today we have developed our own clones — but please don't confuse clones with genetically modified organisms. It simply means selecting the best plants and multiplying that genetic material thousands of times to produce uniform raw material. We grow our medicinal plants ourselves, many even on our doorstep here, working with innovative farmers who also bring good ideas to the table. Production today is completely different from the past, done with high-tech. One more sentence: our cultivation is now digital. We conduct analyses in the field, we have thousands of data points from every harvest for our medicinal plants. Processing is digital too. We've invested a lot here at the company — around 200 million euros at the Neumarkt site in the last ten years. On top of that, we hold patents on Sinupret extract worldwide until 2032. So there has been a truly massive evolution, beginning with my start here at Bionorica.

This is very important to me, because it's always picked up by the press: in nature we also find the strongest poisons. Not everything plant-based is inherently good and healthy without side effects. On the other hand, when I was at my vineyard on Sunday, it makes you think — it's incredible what nature actually offers us humans. Why do we have medicinal plants that truly help us so much with illnesses? It got me thinking, especially since I have ivy growing on my house and was thinking about that — and I realized that ivy was also contained in the singing song. Why do we have these medicinal plants like ivy, primrose, gentian, rosemary, and thyme, and why do we find the active ingredients that really help us, particularly with respiratory infections or urinary tract infections?

I think it's wonderful how the evolution of plants — and of humans, but we must also include animals — has developed in a way that we normally support each other. It's fascinating that scientists have observed gorillas, for example, and the leaves they eat when they have digestive problems. We're also researching that plant. Deer, rabbits — they all know which plants to eat when they're ailing. It's truly remarkable that we have such a wonderful source available. And when you look at innovations in complex natural substances, we must say that nearly 70 percent of all pharmaceutical innovations for medicines actually originate from nature — either as they are, or modified, all the way up to cancer therapy, malaria therapy. And cannabis is another plant that's currently experiencing a surge in popularity, one that can give quality of life back to patients who are otherwise out of treatment options. These are all wonderful, exciting plants that nature has in store for us, and we will find many more innovative plants.

Rosemary — in our preparation for uncomplicated urinary tract infections. Thyme in Bronchipret. But equally primrose, yellow gentian. It depends how far you think: plants we don't use, like the Pacific yew, are essentially indispensable in cancer therapy now. Chinese sweet wormwood in malaria therapy. And it's getting more and more exciting because, as we search worldwide for what works — the active substances are compounds that the plant produces essentially to survive. Plants produce these ingredients to attract others, naturally in the course of reproduction, or to protect themselves. And particularly to protect themselves — that's where I believe great new discoveries will be made, in complex natural substances that can help us humans enormously, and where we have the most urgent need. Perhaps we'll succeed in finding something in nature. We desperately need new antibiotics, because as we all know, we're essentially at the end of the line — we haven't had truly innovative antibiotics for a very long time.

I believe responsibility is not just for companies — every person has a responsibility for how they handle the world's resources. It's also very important how you start with yourself, how you handle your waste. It's sometimes shocking in certain countries — how the roadsides, the forests, how much litter is produced, how the ocean is being polluted. We need to ensure that we keep the environment intact for ourselves so that we can survive in it, and above all so that nature still brings us joy, which is increasingly no longer the case. A lot would need to change, because we only thrive in an intact environment. Our plants only thrive in an intact environment, and only then do we have the corresponding quality of life. In that regard, we're practically a model company: during the growth of our medicinal plants, CO2 is processed and oxygen is produced on the one hand. On the other hand, our production residues are actually the best fertilizer. And the solvents we process, primarily alcohol, end up in cleaning products if we can't reuse them — so 100 percent recycled. We're completely natural in that sense. We're also experimenting with the building here — solar panels on the roof, collecting rainwater for toilet flushing, triple-glazed windows. Everything that can be done for environmental standards has been implemented. And I personally look forward to hopefully receiving an electric car in the first quarter of next year, with enough range to perhaps make it to Innsbruck, where I also give lectures.

Working with Gerhard Waldherr was very enjoyable. When approaching such a project, the first thing is to sit down together and see if you get along personally. Fortunately, that worked out very well, because otherwise it probably wouldn't have worked at all. Sitting down with a book author to discuss is like — with a personal coach when you want to develop yourself — you have to completely let your guard down, and the chemistry has to be right. And it was, so it was very enjoyable. It did take a lot of time, but when something gives you that kind of enjoyment and fulfillment, and especially because it's also time for me to reflect — to reflect on what happened, how things developed. Many things that perhaps had been suppressed, even positive ones, surfaced again. And even challenges that were overcome together — it's positive to remember what challenges you had and which ones you managed to overcome.

That's a difficult question — finding one message. But yes, the most important one is to be authentic, straightforward, and credible. I can connect that very nicely with my work, for my company, for my medicines: it's important that they work. I take them myself, I test them myself. And the same goes for my wine — my wine has to speak for me, and I drink it myself. And that, in the end, is the success story.