The Unilab Heritage

In 1945, a small drugstore opened shop in a street corner in war-torn downtown Manila after a fortuitous meeting between two friends, Jose Y. Campos and Mariano K. Tan.

United, the name they gave it, means “Bayanihan” in Filipino; it literally means “being a bayan,” and is thus used to refer to a spirit of communal unity. United Drug became known as the only drugstore that didn’t turn away anyone empty handed. Because as mall as it was, the drugstore had a mission: to provide quality medicines at prices within reach of Filipinos.

A few years after its quiet start, the drugstore had quickly developed into a pharmaceutical company, with a simple manufacturing setup and a vision to promote and sell high quality yet affordable medicines.

By the end of the 1950s, Unilab had become the top pharmaceutical company in the Philippines, and the first company to export affordable yet quality medicines in Asia. In an industry dominated mainly by Western multinationals – which today account for 70 percent of the Philippine market – Unilab became the biggest pharmaceutical manufacturer and the only Filipino-owned landing consistently among the industry’s Top Ten.

With perseverance and discipline, Unilab’s founders have brought the company from its beginnings as a humble manufacturing business into the billion-peso success that it is today. And that same gift of foresight while relentlessly and tenaciously pursuing excellence through the peaks and troughs of the economy led the Campos family to initiate strategic investments in land acquisition. The family set its sights on the rich, fertile land of the South.

With an unwavering vision of land stewardship, building and connecting cities, and developing communities that are worthy to be passed on for generations, in 1961, Greeneld Development Corporation was born.