The businessman and cultural patron Antoni Vila Casas dies at the age of 92

The pharmaceutical entrepreneur and cultural patron Antoni Vila Casas has died at the age of 92, the Vila Casas Foundation announced this Saturday morning.

Vila Casas is a figure of prestige throughout the territory, recognized as one of the great patrons of Catalan art. Born in Barcelona on November 27, 1930, he graduated in Pharmacy from the University of Barcelona and in 1960 founded the company Laboratorios Prodes, later Prodesfarma, which in 1995 became part of Laboratorios Almirall. In 1986 he created the Vila Casas Foundation, which promoted the Volart Space and the Can Framis Museum in Barcelona, the Palau Solterra Museum in Torroella de Montgrí, and the Can Mario Museum in Palafrugell.

He was appointed a member of the Social Council of the University of Barcelona, of the Royal Catalan Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi and of the Royal Academy of Pharmacy of Catalonia. In 1996 he received the Grand Cross of the Order of Civil Merit and in 2004 the Montblanc award for patronage, granted by the Montblanc Foundation. The highest distinctions came in 1999, when he was awarded the Cross of Sant Jordi, and in 2022, when he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

The Foundation has reported that "we will continue to work to be worthy of his legacy, his commitment to art and society and his ambition for the future".