Athens, February, 1 2019
DEMO S.A. Pharmaceutical Industry welcomed 2019, expressing wishes for a creative new year at the event organized for cutting the New Year’s cake. The event took place on Friday, January 25 in a hall in Varympompi, Attica, and was attended not only by the employees of DEMO, but also by representatives of the Municipality, bank officers, cooperators, suppliers and friends of the family of Stavros Demos.
At his welcoming address, the President of DEMO, Mr. Stavros Demos, stated that he is absolutely satisfied and thanked all employees for their contribution to the successful course of the company, especially stressing the significance of DEMO’S employee groups. He was quoted as saying, “How could I not be happy with all of you as part of DEMO’S extended family, and with all of your numerous actions?” He mentioned panDEMOnium, the theatrical group of DEMO, the football team who won the championship for 4 years in a row at the 5 Χ 5 soccer championship organized by the Hellenic Association of Pharmaceutical Companies (SFEE), the team that participates every year in the Athens Classic Marathon, the painting exhibition by the employees’ little children, to name a few. Finally, he wished all the employees and their families health and strength.
Subsequently, the Vice-President of DEMO, Mr. Dimitris Demos, with respect to the development of the company and the investment in buildings, machinery and human recourses, mentioned that “With today’s event we ceremonially bid farewell to a year that can be said to have been successful as regards the work that we accomplished, and we begin a new year full of challenges that lie ahead for all of us. The value of sales in 2018 were almost at the same level as that in 2017, namely 138.4 million euros (136 million euros in 2017) and there was also an increase in exports and in the sales of domestically produced drugs to public hospitals. As regards the company’s investment plan, in 2018 we completed 90% of it, including the very difficult project of creating a new production and packaging unit of glass ampoules of a total capacity of 150 million ampoules (compared with 25 million ampoules today). This project was completed in record time and with very impressive results”.
As regards 2019, Mr. Demos announced the most important project that the company is embarking on, which is: “the new production unit of glass vials and lyophilic products in vials, of a total capacity of 150 million vials in liquid form and 20 million vials in lyophilized form. This investment will put DEMO S.A. to rank among the three biggest companies of lyophilic products in Europe, and is part of the company’s new investment plan for 2019-2022 of a total amount of 30 million Euros”.
He also mentioned the difficulties that the pharmaceutical industry is facing at large, such as the reduction in prices, the claw back schemes, and many others.
“Are these, however, difficulties that we cannot tackle, or challenges that we must face?”, asked Mr. Demos.
“For our company, I believe that these are challenges that must be faced with strength and a good cooperation between decision-makers and employees. Any company whose decision-making bodies are willing to invest in equipment, training and human recourses and whose employees are willing to perform well, has nothing to fear for the future. We in DEMO have both ingredients to success: We have an investment plan, the biggest in the industry for that matter, but MOST IMPORTANTLY we have employees who are willing, bold and hard-working” noted Mr. Demos at the end of his speech.
Following the ceremony that started at 15:00, there were video projections with DEMO’s “best moments” during the previous year and non-stop fun until late at night.