Margo Marrone Buys Back The Organic Pharmacy After Years of Flat Sales Under Italian Ownership

Margo Marrone has bought back control of The Organic Pharmacy, the London skincare brand she founded in 2002 and sold to Italian dermocosmetics group Istituto Ganassini in 2018. UK Companies House filings show Marrone secured at least a 75% stake and returned to the board on October 8, according to Beauty Independent. Neither the 2018 sale price nor the terms of this reversal have been disclosed.

The timing points to a reversal of strategy rather than a simple handover. On December 10, 2025, under Ganassini ownership, The Organic Pharmacy named Jean-Christophe Samyn as general manager, charged with setting strategic direction and driving international expansion, according to The Retail Bulletin. Outgoing general manager Benedetta Ganassini, a member of the family that owned the brand, said she was delighted to pass the baton. Ten months later, the family sold its majority stake back to the founder. What happens to Samyn's mandate under the new ownership structure hasn't been disclosed.

The numbers behind that reversal are stark. Istituto Ganassini's own sustainability report put The Organic Pharmacy's global sales at roughly 7 million euros in 2016, before the sale, and 5.5 million euros, about 6 million dollars, in 2023. Seven years of Ganassini ownership did not grow the brand in dollar terms. The Ganassini family will keep a role as the brand's Italian distribution partner even after giving up ownership, while it refocuses its wider business on other pharmaceutical brands, according to Cosmetics Business.

Marrone trained as a pharmacist and homeopath before opening the brand's first store on King's Road with her husband Francesco, a designer, on the premise that conventional cosmetics ingredients can harm health. She self-funded the business until the 2018 sale. Returning to the board now puts a stake back in growing demand for preventative wellness and longevity, the framing Marrone herself gave the move. As she put it to Cosmetics Business, it was incredibly emotional to return to The Organic Pharmacy.

Since the 2018 sale, Marrone has built two other ventures, pet grooming line Charlie&Co. Naturals and fine jewelry label House of Roxy, designed with her daughter. The buyback puts her personal capital and attention back behind the brand that started it all, at a moment when its store count, reported anywhere from six locations to seven in London plus one in New York depending on the source, has not been independently confirmed since the sale. Whether Istituto Ganassini keeps any minority equity beyond its distribution role is still unclear.