[1] Although the director of the pharmacy has always been a monk of that order, the staff pharmacists have been lay people for the past 30 years (7 religious and 53 laypeople in 2014).

The pharmacy was founded in 1874, at the height of the "Roman Question", when Cardinal Secretary of State Giacomo Antonelli asked Eusebio Ludvig Fronmen, a Fatebenefratelli monk, who ran a nearby pharmacy, to take charge of supplying medicines for the pope and cardinals residing in the Vatican.

[1] Popes had been confined to the Vatican since an 1870 dispute with the Italian government, when Rome was annexed into the Kingdom of Italy.

[1] The pharmacy remained only a storeroom until 1892, when a permanent office was established to offer healthcare services to the pope, cardinals, and bishops of the Vatican.

[5] Non-Vatican employees must obtain a temporary pass from a special registry office, and have a prescription and ID to use the pharmacy.