Clarín – Luar, a Córdoba laboratory with 20 international patents
Laboratorios Química Luar is a company that, shortly after celebrating half a century in Argentina, was awarded with theSME Lifetime Achievement Award 2022. Among other accomplishments over half a century, the company played a prominent role during the pandemic with the development of anebulizable ibuprofen.
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“It is a joy and a great encouragement to receive this award, which we consider a very important recognition of our trajectory,” said Luis Argañarás Luis Argañarás, managing partner and second generation of the company.
The laboratory started its activity in the city of Córdoba in the 1970s, after other attempts that Argañarás Sr. had created and sold. Finally, in 1978, Quimica Luar was incorporated as such, focusing on research and development of innovative products.
“My father, besides being a medical visitor and a great entrepreneur, was a very innovative person. So much so that it was he who created the firstBrewer’s yeast in tablets, a product that, at the time, was very important”, said Argañarás, who is a pharmacist, graduated from the School of Chemical Sciences of the Catholic University of Córdoba.
Today the company produces and marketsophthalmological, antimicrobial, inhaled antimicrobial and mucolytic drugs .
“Our trajectory has been, throughout all these years, to promote research and development of innovative products. For this reason, we are committed to finding solutions for the appropriate treatment of patients and we are continuously involved with research organizations such as theCenter of Excellence in Products and Processes of Córdoba (CEPROCOR), theNational University of Córdoba, theCONICET and other health institutions,” explained the businessman.
Argañarás took over the company at in the midst of the 2001 economic crisis, with the slogan of making products that “have some degree of innovation and that add value through knowledge”.
An important focus is the search for solutions in diseases of the so called “chronic diseases”.uncommon. “We look for solutions to underserved pathologies. “Our fundamental characteristic is to develop products with some degree of innovation that satisfy a genuine need, that are simple and, above all, accessible.”
“When I took over, I decided to follow the path of adding value through knowledge. Thus, in 2007, after an arduous public and private research, we started to commercializethe first products focused on cystic fibrosis,” said the entrepreneur.
“We are one of the most successful examples of public-private articulation, which is manifested in scientific publications and in the 20 patents we have:2 in the United States, 2 in Europe and 16 more patents in different countries around the world. Something uncommon for an Argentine company of our size”.
In 2011 they started with the development of theLuarprofeno, a formulation for the treatment of pulmonary infections based on ibuprofen, inhalable and nebulizable. Little did he imagine the importance that, almost a decade later, this drug was to become from Covid 19 onwards.
“He was instrumental during the pandemic,” Argañarás said. Since the main therapeutic action of this drug is as an anti-inflammatory, the research team at Química Luar proposed that it be used to treat patients suffering from coronavirus pneumonia.
This proposal was approved by the Ministry of Health of Cordoba, as a “compassionate” treatment for patients with Covid 19. . “It provided encouraging results in patients in the inflammatory phase, preventing the level of deterioration at which it becomes necessary to resort to invasive mechanical ventilation,” added Argañarás.
“Science is where we move. In that direction, being a very small company,we have achieved a level of development that allows us to transfer science to people,” he concluded.
