The Pharmacist

Otto Röhm

Chemist and Entrepreneur

Co-founder and long-time co-owner/director of Röhm & Haas, which as Röhm GmbH was acquired by the Hüls Group in the 1980s.

* 1876, Öhringen/Württemberg
† 1939, Berlin

Originally trained as pharmacist’s assistant, Otto Röhm initially studied pharmacy at Munich and Tübingen universities. As a qualified pharmacist he went on to study chemistry in Tübingen, successfully completing his studies in 1901 with a dissertation on "Polymerization products of acrylic acid".

Employment at the pharmaceutical company Merck and as a chemist at the Stuttgart Gasworks followed, where for the first time Otto Röhm worked on processing animal skins, which he treated with gasworks waste water. His research resulted in an enzyme-based leather mordant, which was in great demand in the leather industry. To market this pioneering product, in 1907 he founded in partnership with businessman Otto Haas the company Röhm & Haas in Esslingen, which soon launched the new product OROPON^® on to the market, with great success.

By 1909 the young company already found itself obliged to move to Darmstadt, where a larger facility was built near the leather factories in the Rhine-Main district.

Otto Röhm was the first chemist to isolate and technically exploit enzymes. He thereby revolutionized not only traditional dog-dirt based processes in the leather industry, but also laundry washing after 1914. In 1920 Otto Röhm introduced enzymes into pharmaceuticals and in 1934 into the food industry, initially in fruit juice clarification.