Science and Creativity in the Service of Health

Hemofarm, as the leading manufacturer of generic medicines and dietary supplements, perceives great possibilities in the in-house development of new products and their sales in global markets.

One of the most important tasks in the pharmaceutical industry is certainly the continuous search for the most adequate state-of-the-art therapy enabling more effective treatment, better quality of life and greater opportunities for the prevention and improvement of health.

‘Pharmaceutical development in Hemofarm has been in place for more than 30 years, and we developed more than 300 new products during that period. This year we are marking three decades since the launch of the first products, more precisely Midol and Diclofenac tablets, developed in our laboratories in the Serbian market. Owing to the high quality of our medicines, as well as dietary products and medical devices, Hemofarm products are present in 34 countries on four continents’, Vesna Cvrkota, Master of Pharmacy, Director of Pharmaceutical Development Service in Hemofarm says.

Value-Added Generics

A great expert, multidisciplinary team, and long-standing experience in the development of almost all pharmaceutical forms is the shortest description of Hemofarm Pharmaceutical Development Service. Teams of experts work in laboratories equipped according to the highest global standards, and due to the work complexity, the teams are composed of pharmacists, technologists, chemists, physicochemists.

‘We pay great attention to the development of our employees and intensively support their continuous training, so we have new colleagues who successfully earn doctoral, specialist, and master's degrees every year. We closely collaborate with universities and laboratories in Serbia and abroad. We keep up with global trends in the pharmaceutical industry and implement high requirements in our daily work’, our interlocutor, who is a specialist in industrial pharmacy, explains.

The goal is not only to develop a high-quality generic medicine that will be equal to the originator drug in terms of quality, therapeutic efficacy and safety, but also to have many Hemofarm’s value-added generics, owing to the knowledge and creativity of these experts.

‘Additional values certainly include more favorable storage conditions and a longer shelf life of a medicine, which we achieve either through a different manufacturing process or specifics in the composition of a formulation, which is of better quality in some segments enabling stability of the medicine, for example, in a period of five years. while the originator has achieved stability of three years for the same medicine. Our teams are continuously searching for more state-of-the-art and better solutions’, Vesna Cvrkota Master of Pharmacy, explains.

Always Test and Be First

Always test is the key rule in Hemofarm!

‘When purchasing any raw material, we do not rely on guarantees or data provided by the manufacturer, but rather perform a thorough testing of the substance in our laboratories. We establish whether it is the relevant substance, test the quality grade, test assay, activity, whether there are any residual organic solvents from production that are not allowed in such amount. We perform all such test because quality in pharmacy has no alternative for us, and safety of a future medicine is imperative’, our interlocutor points out.

Pharmaceutical Development Service in Hemofarm is the hub of knowledge and creativity. With new generics, Hemofarm expands its product portfolio as well as its therapeutic coverage. Certain originators are carefully monitored, and a medicine is developed several years in advance with the aim of selling the new product in the market immediately upon the expiry of the originator's patent protection.

‘We are currently working on the development of generics that we will be released to the market after 2030.’ The work is long-lasting, complex, very extensive. We are actively monitoring originator’s drugs, the patent of which will expire in 2030, and we have to foresee everything well in advance in order to be the first with a relevant generic medicine in pharmacies, so that Hemofarm will be the first to ensure greater availability of that medicine for patients in Serbia and our health system’, Vesna Cvrkota, Director of Pharmaceutical Development Service, says.