Margo Marrone Buys Back The Organic Pharmacy After Eight Years

Founders usually sell once. Margo Marrone has now done the rarer thing and bought her company back. On October 8, 2026, according to filings on Companies House, she was appointed a director of The Organic Pharmacy Limited and notified as holding 75% or more of its shares, eight years after she and her then-husband sold the business to Italy’s Istituto Ganassini. The price has not been disclosed.

At a glance

A pharmacist’s shop on the King’s Road

The Organic Pharmacy opened its first shop on London’s King’s Road in 2002, according to BeautyMatter. Beauty Independent says Marrone drew on her training as a pharmacist and homeopath to put herbal medicine, homeopathy and organic formulations made in a London lab under one roof, and that she and Francesco Marrone self-funded the business until they sold it. (The company itself was incorporated earlier, on June 28, 2000, per Companies House.)

When Istituto Ganassini bought the brand in 2018, Cosmetics Business reported it sold in 28 countries with four stores in London and two in the US, in Los Angeles and New York. Ganassini is a dermocosmetics group founded in 1935 and, per BeautyMatter, active in 60 countries. The sale was its entry into organic beauty.

What the register shows

The trade press tells this as a founder’s homecoming. The filings tell it as a sequence:

• June 7, 2018: Francesco Marrone and a second Marrone shareholder, each previously holding 25-50%, cease to be people with significant control; Domenico Ganassini Di Camerati is notified at 75% or more.
• December 31, 2018: Margo Marrone resigns as director and secretary.
• 2021-2022: she returns to the board from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022. Beauty Independent says this was at the Ganassini family’s request.
• December 17, 2024: control is recorded as moving from Domenico Ganassini Di Camerati to Istituto Ganassini S.p.A., still at 75% or more.
• June 17, 2026: Giuseppe Ganassini Di Camerati, a director since 2018, leaves the board.
• October 8, 2026: Marrone is appointed a director and notified as holding 75% or more; Istituto Ganassini ceases to be a person with significant control; directors Richard Sedgwick and Benedetta Umberta Ganassini Di Camerati resign.

The same filing history shows steady share issues. The company’s statement of capital rose from £3.42 million in April 2025 to £5.92 million after an allotment dated October 8, 2026, across roughly ten filings. The October allotment added £1.1 million; Beauty Independent reports it as 44,000 shares at £25 each. The filings do not say who subscribed, and they do not say whether Ganassini kept a minority stake. We have not tried to infer either. What the register does show is that a brand that spent two years absorbing new capital changed hands on the day its founder returned.

Companies House notes that it does not check the accuracy of what is filed, and several of the share filings carry later corrections. We rely on the dated director and control entries, which are consistent with the trade reports.

What the brand and the buyer said

Cosmetics Business, reporting on October 30, said the return is meant to reconnect the brand with its founding focus on health, detoxification and lifestyle, and to tie skin health to internal wellbeing and healthy ageing. BeautyMatter, on November 1, described the same rationale around holistic health, preventative wellness and longevity. Both report that the Ganassini family remains a partner as the brand’s distributor in Italy while it refocuses on other pharmaceutical brands.

Marrone’s own statements, as quoted by the outlets, are about feeling: the return was emotional, and she is looking forward to being creative again. The reports do not quote any figure from her.

A brand that changed under its new owner

Beauty Independent reports that under Ganassini the brand was rebranded, with a new logo and packaging and an assortment cut by roughly a fifth to a quarter, and that former CEO Claire Bories-Azeau left the board in September 2024 (Companies House confirms she was a director from January 1, 2023 to September 21, 2024). In September 2026, shortly before the handover, the brand launched a retinal night serum. Whether Marrone keeps that direction is the open question. Her stated aim is to go back to the pharmacist’s logic of the original shop.

What founders can take from it

• A sale can be a loan. Marrone sold in 2018 and was back on the board by 2021. Founders rarely fully leave.
• Check the register, not just the headline. The Companies House record dates the handover precisely and shows what the announcement left out: share issues, resignations, and no price.
• Nobody has said what it cost. Treat any figure you see for this deal as unconfirmed.
• Heritage is an asset only the founder can reclaim. The brand’s pitch rests on pharmacist-led advice, and Marrone is the pharmacist.

Related founders

• Giambattista Valli Buys Back His Brand from Artémis: another founder who reclaimed ownership in 2026.
• Daniel Patino and Salad and Go: a founder who bought his brand back.
• Founder Exits of 2026: 23 Deals and What Founders Kept: the year’s founder ownership deals in one table.

Sourcing: director, shareholder-control and share-allotment details are from the Companies House filing history, officers and persons-with-significant-control pages for company 04022675, opened directly on November 12, 2026. Deal context is from Beauty Independent, Cosmetics Business (October 30, 2026 and June 2018) and BeautyMatter (November 1, 2026), each attributed inline; terms were not disclosed. Revenue figures reported by a single outlet are omitted. No portrait is used; the image is a typographic card.