Nutricia International is a German multinational pharmaceutical company with its headquarters in Netherlands. The company was founded by Johannes and Martinus van der Hagen in the year 1896. The history of the company takes us back to the nineteenth century, where high mortality rates existed among infants in Europe. The reason for the massive death count was poor nutrition of the babies who had been born recently and depended totally on their mother’s milk. Those who could not breastfeed their young ones were forced to switch to substitutes with majority of mothers turning to milk from cows for their children as there were not too many options other than wet-nurse and dairy during those times. The former option was not the one that everyone could afford. With continuous efforts being made by scientists, none were successful and were severely affecting the health of infants causing digestive and kidney problems. It was during this time that an important discovery was made by a professor from Germany called Alexander Backhaus. While working on cow milk in his laboratory in the year 1885, he discovered a way to flush out the difficult-to-digest protein casein from the milk while keeping the digestible proteins intact. In order to protect his findings, he founded the laboratory called ‘Nutricia Zentrale’ and presented his work at a medical conference held at Berlin in the year 1896. Among those who were present in the conference, two brothers Johannes van der Hagen and Martinus van der Hagen were moved greatly by the innovation and sought permission from Backhaus to establish their company ‘Nutricia’ to which Backhaus agreed. The company excelled greatly, saving young lives, and their infant formula came to be popularly known as “The Wet Nurse of The Netherlands”. The company expanded further and started the segment of medical nutrition for the first time in 1905 by manufacturing milk that was low in sugar and rich in iodine for diabetic and goitre patients respectively. Nutricia became a part of the global company Danone in 2007.

The company specializes in the areas of oncology, critical care, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, stroke, wound care, pediatric, neuroscience, immunology, gut health and nutrition.

Nutricia has one of its major manufacturing facilities in the Netherlands that was started in 2019. The company has an international presence in Europe, North America, Asia and Latin America through its research centers.

Some of the top products of the company are DEXOLAC, PROTINEX, APTAMIL, EASUM, NUSOBEE, MAMA PROTINEX, PROTINEX LITE, FAREX, DEXOLAC HI-KAL, FAREX-1, NEOCATE, DEXOLAC NUSOBEE, FAREX-2, FAREX WHEAT APPLE, FAREX M.CER M/FRT, PROTINEX-DIABETIC, FAREX-3, PROTINEX BYTES, FAREX MIX FRUT, PROTINEX TOTAL, FIRST FOOD, FAREX RICE, FAREX, MULTI CEREAL and FAREX WHEAT.