Events

An account of the opening of the Adamed Group’s R&D

22 April 2016

The ceremony was attended by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development Mateusz Morawiecki, the Deputy Minister of Health, Krzysztof Łanda, the Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, and Piotr Dardziński as well as the President of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland, Alicja Adamczak, and by scholars, government administration officials and the media.

The Center opening marked the 30th anniversary of Adamed. Małgorzata Adamkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D., presented to the numerous guests the company’s status and its achievements. She opened her speech, however, with acknowledgement of the Adamed fellow associates, highlighting that many of them had been working in the company for many years.

“Adamed today is represented by 1,600 employees, highly skilled associates, over 50 million packets of our products and 1.5 billion of pills annually (...). Our products are applied in the vast majority of therapeutic areas,”  emphasised Małgorzata Adamkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D..

She added that not only are Adamed products sold domestically, but they are exported to nearly 60 countries worldwide. The expansion into further markets is also planned. “We want to develop and focus on expanding abroad, since today only a company operating on an international scale stands a chance to survive in such a competitive environment,” stated the Group’s VP, reiterating that the company has invested in research and development about PLN 900 million during the last 15 years.

“We continue to develop, we look for inspirations and unconventional solutions. We support young people because we believe that in this way we shape future leaders in an innovative Polish economy. That is the idea behind Adamed SmartUP, our educational programme.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of our company, today we announce the “30 Laboratories for 30 Years of Adamed” competition for students in secondary schools, with the prize being modern equipment for 30 biology, chemistry or physics school laboratories. The competition is among the wider activities conducted mostly by the Adamed Group Foundation, which was established to support activities in the area of research and development, science and education for mathematics and natural sciences”, said Małgorzata Adamkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D.

What is the price of an innovative drug?

Małgorzata Stokrocka, Research and Development Director at Adamed Group, shared the details of innovative projects conducted as well as information on the Research and Development Center. According to statistics, the costs of worldwide innovation are as much as USD 1.3 billion, but we know how to do it more cheaply. Obviously, creating something new is a huge challenge and takes many years of hard work. The difference in cost between developing an innovative medicine and generic medicine makes the Polish pharmaceutical innovative market share rather insignificant. Adamed was the first Polish pharmaceutical company to pursue the search for innovative drugs in 2001. The stability of the domestic pharmaceutical industry is a prerequisite for providing innovative drug therapy in Poland, added Małgorzata Stokrocka.

Innovation is the only way to attain global success and a competitive advantage. We employ over 100 first class experts and provide jobs for scholars from Polish universities and scientific centres, said Małgorzata Stokrocka.

The jewel in the crown of the Polish economy

The celebration also included a discussion on “Investment in innovation as an opportunity for globalization of the Polish economy.” The participants were the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Development, Mateusz Morawiecki, the Deputy Minister of Health, Krzysztof Łanda, the Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education, Piotr Dardziński, the President of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland, Alicja Adamczak and Małgorzata Adamkiewicz.

We will manage to break out of the trap of average development when we know how to invest in increasingly advanced products, which will help us achieve increasingly high margins in international markets, said Deputy Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, pointing that Adamed fits greatly in with the plans.

Your company is such a jewel in the crown of the Polish economy (...). The role of a state is firstly, not to harm; and secondly, help wherever possible and create conditions favourable for development, which will facilitate implementation of your projects and your new technological and medical solutions. This surely fits entirely into the responsible development plan, stated the Deputy Prime Minister.

The Deputy Minister of Health, Krzysztof Łanda, emphasized the role of the “reasonable reimbursement policy” in supporting the Polish pharmaceutical industry.

The biggest malady of the pharmaceutical market and Polish manufacturers is that (...) our scholars leave the country. The idea is formulated in Poland, it is far easier to develop it here, and then commercialise it abroad, asserted Deputy Minister Łanda, adding that in order to reverse the trend, Poland needs favourable conditions for investing to be created. Deputy Minister Łanda identified activities aimed at eliminating the negative balance of trade in medicines as one of the pillars of the national pharmaceutical policy.

Deputy Minister Piotr Dardziński emphasised the role of cooperation between science and business. He announced some adjustments in the government policy towards universities: the introduced changes will financially promote those universities which pay more attention to commercialising their activities in cooperation with enterprises. Deputy Minister Dardziński also called for scientists employed in enterprises to be given opportunities for their scientific development. There is no such dilemma of science or business, he said.

The President of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland presented in detail issues related to patent protection, but expressed her scepticism about a so-called europatent. She said that introducing it in Poland will in practice mean the inability of many enterprises to participate in litigation due to financial reasons.

This opinion was shared by Małgorzata Adamkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D., who reiterated that when it was first created Adamed successfully campaigned against large companies in patent disputes. The CEO of Adamed Group also drew attention to the need to improve the research and development tax credit introduced from January 1, 2016, so that it supports both start-ups as well as large enterprises, since R&D initiatives are conducted primarily by large national entities which on the global scale, however, are still perceived as small or medium-sized enterprises.

I think that if we succeeded in introducing, for example a patent box, i.e. a tax exemption on income generated by products protected by patents in Poland, such a solution would enable us to make sure that intellectual property stays in Poland. We perceive investment in innovation as an opportunity for a strong international development. We know that without R&D activities there can be no globalization, stated Małgorzata Adamkiewicz, M.D., Ph.D.

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CSR/Corporate social responsibility
21 April 2016