NEW HEMOFARM PREPARATIONS TO APPEAR SOON

of medicaments. It has now been stipulated precisely that advertisers of medicaments can pay doctors for the necessary
travelling costs to the expert gathering, accomodation and board and partipation fee and as regards the travel to a
scientific gathering, which had been transformed to a complete tourist package until now, a doctor can now only take one
day to go and one day to come back.
MEMORIES
On the occasion of my retirement, after 34 years of employment in Hemofarm, I would
like to express some of my memories, related to my work in this company, which may be
of interest to my younger colleagues.
I came to Hemofarm first in July 1970 (location across the railway station).
As a third year student of chemistry at the Natural Sciences – Mathematics Faculty, I
came to do my practice in the Hemofarm laboratory for one month.
My impressions which date back from that time were: a well organized company in
which work, order and discipline are respected.
The beautiful surroundings of the factory, nice park and garden, as well as a volley ball
court on which we would throw a few balls over the net after lunch time are beautiful
memories.
I started working in Hemofarm in September 1973 as a graduate chemist at the post of
an analyst in the laboratory.
The laboratory had four employees at that time, I was the fifth.
The equipment we had was modest in comparison with the one existing today, but it was precious for us, and we kept it
and maintained as the greatest treasure.
The number of the employees in the laboratory increased to about twenty with the changeover to the new factory in 1976,
we got bigger rooms and new laboratory equipment. It was necessary to master the production of infusions and
liophilisates and thereby also to master over new analytic techniques (flame photometry, gas and liquid chromatography,
polarometry ...).
The amino analyzer was the most significant apparatus which served us to determine the content of amino acids, of which
there were about twenty in a mixture in amino steriles. We had to calculate the long way the content of each amino acid,
counting the dots which constituted the peak surface, because there were no integrators.
The columns were glass instead of the metal ones used today, so you can image our problems if the glass broke.
A microbiology laboratory was established simultaneously with the mastering over of the new technologies and new
analyzing techniques and the process control and quality assurance department were introduced.
In 1982 the plant for the production of the dialysers was opened, which meant that we too, in the control, had to master
the analyses for the control of the dialysers and AV systems. I remember the meetings of the pharmaceutical section of JUSK
(The Association for Standardisation and Quality). The members were the representatives of quality control from all
pharmaceutical companies of the former Yugoslavia: Galenika, Pliva, Krka, Lek, Zorka, Zdravlje, Alkaloid, BosnaLijek, and
Jugoremedija.
Besides expert issues which we discussed (making monographs for the control of raw materials and packing material), we
exchanged also experience from daily practice. The meetings were held each time in another factory, thus we got to know
the whole former Yugoslavia. I would like to point out that we travelled mainly by train or bus.
We would celebrate the end of our counsellings by a joint dinner and dance the national dance Kolo Od Vardara pa do
Triglava (From Vardar to Triglav).
I also remember the trip to Germany in 1989 which was organized by the company Schott, an ampule producer. About
forty of us, representatives from the control, production and purchase sectors from all pharmaceutical companies went to
Zagreb by bus.