Extrafarma is the

drugstore A pharmacy (also called drugstore in American English or community pharmacy or chemist in Commonwealth English) is a premises which provides pharmaceutical drugs, among other products. At the pharmacy, a pharmacist oversees the fulfillment of m ...

chain owned by Ultrapar. The company is among the top 10 largest pharmacy chains in

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

, with stores located throughout the north, northeast and southern regions of the country. The company has more than 400 stores in 10 States and more than 7000 employees.

History

Pedro de Castro Lazera founded the company Imifarma on 2 December 1960. It was initially focused on the drug distribution

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: *Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand *Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market *Marketing, the act of sat ...

. In the 1990s, Imifarma started to operate in the retail market through its own network of pharmacies under the name Extrafarma. The store chain began in the city of Belém and expanded to other areas in the state of Pará and in the neighbor state of Amapá. Later, it expanded to the states of

Maranhão Maranhão () is a States of Brazil, state in Brazil. Located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region, it has a population of about 7 million and an area of and it is divided into 217 municipalities. Clockwise from north, it ...

Ceará Ceará (, ) is one of the 26 states of Brazil, located in the Northeast Region, Brazil, northeastern part of the country, on the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic coast. It is the List of Brazilian states by population, eighth-largest Brazilian State by ...

Piauí Piauí ( ) is one of the states of Brazil, located in the country's Northeast Region, Brazil, Northeast Region. The state has 1.6% of the Brazilian population and produces 0.7% of the Brazilian GDP. Piauí has the shortest coastline of any coas ...

and

Rio Grande do Norte Rio Grande do Norte (, , ) is one of the states of Brazil. It is located in the northeastern region of the country, forming the northeasternmost tip of the South American continent. The name literally translates as "Great Northern River", refe ...

. In 2013, Extrafarma was acquired by

Ultra Ultra may refer to: Science and technology * Ultra (cryptography), the codename for cryptographic intelligence obtained from signal traffic in World War II * Adobe Ultra, a vector-keying application * Sun Ultra series, a brand of computer work ...

. With the acquisition, Ultra entered the pharmaceutical retail industry and made Extrafarma its third distribution business and specialty retail chain, along with Ipiranga and Ultragaz. With the acquisition, Extrafarma will expand and open new pharmacy stores inside Ipiranga gas stations and Ultragaz resellers.

Awards

ADVB-PA Award – Association of Sales and Marketing Managers from Brazil: Top Environmental Company Award, 2012.

References

{{Reflist, 2 Brazilian brands Companies based in Belém (Pará) Medicinal chemistry Pharmacies of Brazil Ultrapar