Benefactors
Dr. Andreas and Dr. Thomas Strüngmann
The twins Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann were born in 1950. They both did a university study and obtained PhDs; Andreas as a medical doctor, Thomas as an economist. Whereas Andreas gained experience in the medical field by working in hospitals in South Africa, Thomas worked his way up in the US-company Schering-Plough in New York. In 1979, their father asked the brothers to team up into the generic-selling family business Durachemie.
After having developed the company to such a stage that other firms were interested in buying Durachemie, in 1986, the Strüngmann brothers decided to sell the company. By selling it, they had the opportunity to build up their own company Hexal, which soon became one of the leading generic companies in Germany. In 2005 they had expanded the business in over 30 countries with combined total sales of over 1.7 billion Euros. They sold the company to Novartis and started their own family office, which invests in the pharmaceutical field and various other areas.
In memory of their late father, Dr. Ernst Strüngmann, the brothers founded the Ernst Strüngmann Foundation in 2008, which, besides other projects, is financing the Ernst Strüngmann Institute (ESI) for Neuroscience. The ESI focuses on the cognitive neuroscience research field. To ensure long-term scientific excellence, Drs. Andreas and Thomas Strüngmann signed a cooperation agreement with the Max Planck Society for scientific governance of the ESI. Prof. Wolf Singer, a well-known expert in the neuroscientific research field and close friend of the Strüngmann brothers, assisted in the process and served as the founding director of the ESI.