Serono was a biotechnology company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It was acquired by the German pharmaceutical company Merck in 2006. The company was founded as the Serono Pharmacological Institute by Cesare Serono in 1906 in Rome, Italy. Serono was incorporated in 1987 and the holding company, Ares-Serono S.A., changed its name to Serono S.A. in May 2000, the same year that its CEO, Ernesto Bertarelli, led a listing on the New York Stock Exchange.[1]
Serono developed and marketed pharmaceuticals in the fields of reproductive health, multiple sclerosis, growth & metabolism and dermatology.[2] A key step in its development was the discovery of a method of extracting urinary gonadotropins by Dr. Piero Donini. A decade after his discovery, a partnership with Professor Bruno Lunenfeld led to gonadotropins being able to become a widely available and commercially successful treatment for infertility, marketed by the company as Pergonal. Serono obtained the biological material for the gonoadtropin extraction from the urine of Italian nuns, thanks to the connections of one of its board members, Giulio Pacelli, who was the nephew of Pope Pius XII.[3]