The Museo Farmacia Habanera continues to operate as a pharmacy, while it has enabled an exhibition area that gives information about the old pharmacies, and the development of pharmaceutical science throughout the history of Cuba. It also exhibits many apothecary instruments and containers found through the excavations in houses of the habaneros, some even with the remains of the medications that they contained.

HISTORY

In 1853, some Catalan pharmacists, including Valentín Catalá y Pradell, José Sarrá y Catalá and José Sarrá y Valldejulí, arrived in Havana. They all were apothecaries in Barcelona, and like thousands of their compatriots, they went to Cuba to try their luck in business. It was a period during which the medicaments used on the island were only phytotherapeutcics in most cases.

They met another apothecary, Antonio González López, and established together a pharmaceutical company, the Catalá, Sarrá y Compañía, in a domestic house on the Teniente Rey street #22 (current #261). They call it the pharmacy La Réunion, because for the first time in Havana they sold allopathic and homeopathic medicines together at the same place. In 1865, Valentín Catalá returned to Barcelona after having sold his share in the company to his relatives and partners, so that the company continued under the name of Sarrá y Compañía. They buy the farm 767, located on the Compostela street #95A to build a warehouse. In 1868, when Antonio González López also sold his share, there remained only two partners: José Sarrá y Catalá and José Sarrá y Valldejulí. In 1877 José Sarrá y Catalá died in Barcelona by heart attack, so that José Sarrá y Valldejulí became the only owner of the company.

José Sarrá transformed the shop into an elegant drugstore by decorating it with shelves and counters of precious wood and stained glass windows, impressed by the French fashion that dominated Havana in the last quarter of the 19th century. He changed all the furniture. At the same time, he expanded the laboratory and the office by buying the adjoining houses on the Compostela street (#83 and #85). He bought new machinery. In 1886 La Réunion became one of the most distinguished pharmacies in Havana, and in a short time it grew into the largest pharmacy in the Latin America, including Cuba, and the world’s second largest pharmacy after the American Johnson. The dazzling growth of the company brought great social prestige to José Sarrá y Valdejulí, so that he became the member of the Junta Superior de Instrucción Pública de Cuba (Higher Board of the Public Instruction of Cuba), and the founder and later the director of the Pharmaceutical College (1882). The Spanish King Alfonso XII granted him the honorary title of Pharmacist and Druggist of the Royal House, as well as the right to use the Royal Coat of Arms on the labels and bills of the Drugstore Sarrá.

Upon the sudden death of José Sarrá y Valldejulí on his trip to Catalonia in 1898, the property passed to the hands of his wife Celia Hernández y Buchó, and the company was renamed as Viuda de Sarrá e Hijos (Widow Sarrá and Children). The first-borne male child Ernesto that was expected to continue the family tradition, had just finished his doctorate in pharmacy in the University of Havana (1897).  In the time of Ernesto Sarrá y Hernández the seven storey building next to the La Réunion on the Compostela street, was built and served as warehouse. In the same period the third storey was added to the building of La Réunion.

In 1912 Ernesto built the Velasco Sarrá Palace for his sister Maria Teresa that had just married Dionisio Velasco. The palace is currently the headquarter of the Embassy of Spain. 

In the first decade of the 20th century, Ernesto Sarrá y Hernández bought more than 20 buildings in the block, bordered by the Teniente Rey, the Compostela, the Muralla and the Habana streets, and merged them, so that with 46 buildings, 600 employees and more than 500 products the pharmaceutical company became one of the most important business groups in Cuba in 1914.

Ernesto gave great importance to the publicity of the company particularly by distrubiting  advertisements of large dimension on which his name was written in big fonts. Thus, the pharmacy began to be known popularly by his surname (Farmacia Sarrá).

In 1941 he apportioned the company equally among his daughters Ernestina, Hilda and Ophelia.

After the revolution, La Réunion was expropriated and continued to function as Municipal Pharmacy of Old Havana until 1999. The adjoining rooms were occupied by the Medicine Supply Company (ENSUFARMA), and in the rest of the block the Saúl Delgado Industry of the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), dedicated to the production of liquid preparations, was established.

In 2004 the building opened its doors as a pharmacy museum (Museo Farmacia Habanera) after a meticulous restoration with great respect to its authenticity.