The new Development Centre - One of Lek's Present Key Investments
Ljubljana, 25 September – Today, Mrs. Viktorija Potočnik, the Mayor of the Ljubljana City Municipality, laid the foundation stone for the new Lek’s development centre in the presence of representatives of the Slovene scientific and economic communities. The investment of the budgeted value of SIT3,300 million is one of Lek’s major present projects. Thereby, the company wishes to create favourable conditions for achieving top results in the field of development and research, and consequently, to implement its business strategy till the year 2005.
On this occasion, the Mayor pointed out the following: “As the Mayor of the city where Lek has its headquarters, I view this highly promising business decision as a new healthy core of the regional economy, and moreover, as an opportunity of further consolidation of the economic basis for the development of our city. It is needless to say that development and efficiency of this field are the very factors that determine the development level and good performance of other fields in a society, and that the balance between the achievements in various fields is the only thing that leads towards an overall development of the society."
As Metod Dragonja, the President of the Board of Management, put it: “ In its corporate strategy, Lek set ambitious objectives and business orientations for the next medium-term period. The role of knowledge and innovation is becoming increasingly important in the company’s development. Our competitiveness will be built on the efficacy and pace of our development activities in the segment of pharmaceutical active ingredients and generics, as well as on innovative pharmaceutical formulations. Lek wishes to take a bold step towards an innovative pharmaceutical company, yet this requires sharpening and complementing the management and control methods for the development and research activities. Lek wants to become a company with knowledge as the major factor of its future development."
Prof.dr. Uroš Urleb, member of the Lek Board of Management, in charge of research and development activities, believes that development is of vital importance for the pharmaceutical industry, since it provides solutions to ensure patient-friendlier, safer and more effective drugs. He also said that for a pharmaceutical company , besides its own development activities in its home country and abroad, connecting to domestic know-how in other institutions is extremely important.
Lek has been co-operating with various faculties of the Ljubljana and Maribor universities as well as with research institutes in Slovenia and abroad. By providing finance for their field of activitiy and through the exchange of know-how, it enables development of knowledge and pharmaceutical products with a high added value.
The new Lek research centre will be built on 5100m2 of external surfaces, surrounded by 800m2 of grass area; it will include various laboratories, studies, classrooms and other rooms with 226 employees. The building will be finished by the middle of the year 2002, while moving in is planned for the second half of the same year.