2. PHAROS GmbH: the Company Name and the Scarab Symbol
PHAROS GmbH was founded in 1994 by Dr.med. Rudolf A. Theodor as an independent CRO for Early Clinical Research.
Dr. Theodor and his team of physicians and CRAs have been working together in international contract research for many years. As a team they have developed, designed, performed and supervised more than 1,000 Phase I and Phase II Clinical Trials, which have been used for regulatory submissions throughout the world.
Dr. Theodor is a founder member of the German Association of Applied Human Pharmacology (AGAH) and of the European Club of Human Pharmacologists (ECHP), an active member of the German Association of Physicians in the Pharmaceutical Industry (FÄPI) and of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS).
He is co-author of several books on GCP and Pharmacokinetics and he regularly lectures and publishes articles on Good Clinical Practice, Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamic Modelling. He has served on an FDA Working Group for 'Standardisation of Clinical Research' and has given training courses to employees of the BGA (now BfArM).
2. PHAROS GmbH: the Company Name and the Scarab Symbol.
PHAROS is the abbreviation of PHArmaceutical Research OutSourcing.
Pharos was the name of the lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
Since Alexandria is located in Egypt, the adaptation of an Egyptian symbol for the PHAROS logo seemed self-evident.
We chose the Scarab Beetle for both its attributed mythological meanings in ancient Egypt:
Some 5,000 years ago, the Egyptians believed that the sun was pushed across the sky by a god called Khepri, much in the same fashion a scarab or dung beetle pushed a ball of dung across the ground. Thus Khepri was presented by a scarab with a sun disc. The sun was the source of all life on earth. Where the Scarab was pushing the sun there was light and warmth. Our company logo reflects this: the night blue sky is brightly lit and white only where the scarab and the sun are. The light guides the way, much like the lighthouse beam of Alexandria guided the ships safely into the city's harbour. This is our aim as well: to shed some light onto the darkness of unanswered questions and problems with our research work and to guide pharmaceutical research safely to the goals set.
(For more information on the Egyptian god Khepri follow this link)!
During the same period in time, the scarab without the sun disc was the symbol for well-being. It symbolised (similar to the WHO definition of health) the absence of any physical or mental disease and the synchronicity of any living being with society, the world, the universe and the gods. As our research work is directed towards the treatment of disease states to regain or maintain this status of unimpaired holistic well-being, we believe the Scarab to be the most appropriate symbol for our underlying philosophy and our endeavours.