A pharma brand portfolio built across Europe and the CIS, and a rare mutual understanding that has only deepened over time.
Most partnerships are measured in projects. This one is measured in years of learning to understand each other: how the other side thinks, what it will accept without discussion, and where it is worth pushing back. That rare skill does not appear in a brief. It develops over time and continues to deepen. And we still challenge each other: our team and JGL’s.
JADRAN – GALENSKI LABORATORIJ d.d. (JGL d.d.) is a Croatian pharmaceutical company. It develops and produces sterile eye and nasal care products, and also works on drugs that act on the senses and the cardiovascular system. Its Adriatic seawater technology has been refined for more than 20 years.
For more than 12 years, Mildberry has been working side by side with JGL as its partner in brand portfolio development across Europe and the CIS. We work on strategy, new brands, and the renewal of existing ones.We lead strategic sessions and share our view of where the category is heading with JGL’s stakeholders, helping the company stay one step ahead. We discuss decisions with the Croatia headquarters, and we help regional leaders adapt them, put them into practice, and succeed in their local markets.
years of partnership, since 2014
products made every day at JGL
consumers worldwide
countries where Aqua Maris by JGL is available
The portfolio's brightest star is Aqua Maris, a global brand that pioneered sea-water nasal care in the CIS. It has sold more than 200 million units and is available in over 30 countries. A leader's position is never settled. As new formats and competitors arrived, we restructured the range and built a packaging system that keeps a large portfolio easy to navigate.That work set the pattern for everything that followed. The brands we build for JGL are designed as a portfolio, not as separate launches.
Our projects span JGL's core areas of care: respiratory health and the other senses, digestion, skin, and more. In each, we regularly renew existing brands and launch new ones. Rinomaris in nasal care, Optinol in eye care, and Dramina, a market leader given a new identity, are just a few of the cases we have published. Many other assignments remain under NDA, and many are still in development. We will publish them as they come to market.
Skin is the newest territory. It covers modern products for everyone, teenagers included, and complex concerns such as rosacea and acne. Alongside it, we work on brands for mothers and children, a category with its own audience and its own standards of trust. Across all areas, the aim is the same: brands that look and sound like the science behind them. They should feel modern and approachable, and they should never lose their scientific credibility.
“We especially value the agency’s ability to account for the needs and preferences of any target audience it works with. That, in essence, is what defines success.”
In 2020, JGL invited us to its Croatia headquarters in Rijeka. It matters enormously to meet people and see a real business in person before shaping strategy for it. We prepared and led an extended strategy session with teams from every market, so that people who usually work apart could shape one strategic direction together.
The visit went beyond the meeting room. We walked through Pharma Valley, where more than 300 products are made every day, and through the laboratories where new ones are developed and quality is controlled. The complex is a piece of architecture in its own right. A 200-meter-long, 17-meter-high structure, built from five identical “vertebrae,” marks the entrance to Rijeka like a spatial sign. Under one roof it brings together research and development, laboratories, production to the highest GMP standards, a robotized warehouse, and offices. Seeing the science, the scale, and the discipline behind each product changed how we think about the brands that carry it.
Then we swam in the healing waters of the Adriatic Sea, where the products come from. It is hard to write about a brand’s origin better than that.
Our work goes beyond consumer products. We also help JGL turn entire business directions and divisions into brands that carry weight in the professional community. For a company whose products start in the laboratory, this audience matters as much as the shopper does.
Doctors, pharmacists, and specialists read a brand differently. They look for evidence, consistency, and a clear reason to recommend one product over another. A branded division built for them needs a clear role, a recognizable identity, and a scientific voice that remains consistent across every market—from packaging and presentations to materials used in clinics and at the pharmacy counter.
This is where portfolio thinking pays off. When a direction is structured as a brand, each product inside it gains credibility from the whole. Professionals recognize it faster, trust it sooner, and remember it longer.
Pharma is changing. It is becoming more human-centered, and new solutions are appearing where pharmaceutical science meets cosmetic care. Patients now choose as consumers do: they compare, ask questions, and expect products that fit their daily lives, not only their diagnosis.
We help JGL adapt to this shift. Its foundation does not change: laboratories, research, and a production base built on scientific expertise. That foundation is what people trust, and every branding decision starts from it.
Our task is to translate that science into a language people understand, so that products feel closer and more approachable without losing credibility. In practice, this means a brand system that works on two levels. For the consumer, it is clear, warm, and easy to choose. For the professional, it stays precise, evidence-led, and recognizably scientific. The same product speaks to both, and the portfolio holds together as one.
“Professionalism, an attentive approach to the client, and high-quality work that keeps our products in trend for many years without losing their relevance.”
The partnership rests on attention from both sides, trust, and full commitment. Over the years, that has become a way of working: we speak openly, disagree when it helps the brand, and decide together. We work directly with the headquarters in Croatia and with the heads of regional business units, which keeps decisions close to the markets they affect.
Each new project is a bigger challenge than the last. Both teams prefer it that way: we always raise the bar, and we are working on many such projects now.