History
The Pelion Healthcare Group's history goes back to 1990, when the communist system collapsed and Poland embraced free-market economy. Seizing the opportunity offered by the fact that the pharmaceutical market was freed from state control, Jacek Szwajcowski and his schoolmate, Zbigniew Molenda, decided to establish their own pharmaceutical wholesale business to address the biggest problem faced by first private-owned pharmacies, i.e. huge procurement difficulties. Thus, on December 20th 1990, the pharmaceutical wholesaler Medicines appeared on the Łódź market.
They did not have to wait long for a success on the local market. The two friends made up for scarce capital and infrastructure with ingeniousness, commitment and persistence. After four months, Medicines supplied 40 pharmacies and after two years - more than 200. However, as the Company was growing, so was the owners' appetite for more. The founders dreamt of building a countrywide, dynamically growing company, which would blaze trails for the industry and lead its growth.
1998 was the breakthrough year for Medicines S.A., which - as the first ever pharmaceutical distribution company - debuted on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. The proceeds from the IPO fuelled the Company's rapid growth and allowed it to consolidate the wholesale pharmaceutical market. A year later, the Company changed its name from Medicines S.A. to Polska Grupa Farmaceutyczna S.A., thus beginning a run of mergers and acquisitions.
As early as in December 1999, PGF S.A. merged with Urtica Zaopatrzenie Farmaceutyczne Szpitali Sp. z o.o. (currently: PGF Urtica Sp. z o.o.), entering the market of wholesale to hospitals, which today is one of the four core areas of the Group's operations.
In 2001, the Company underwent restructuring, developed a new organisational model and distribution concept. The changes consisted in the development of a uniform offering and uniform organisational and legal structure, elimination of intra-group competition and streamlining of logistics. Since then, all the Group's companies have been operating under the common brand of PGF.
In the same year, PGF rolled out the Dbam o Zdrowie ("I Care for My Health") loyalty programme for pharmacies, starting to rapidly grow its presence in the retail segment, which quickly became the second pillar of the Group's operations. The objective behind the programme is the promotion of pharmacies as places where customers can not only buy medicines, but also obtain professional advice. The participating pharmacies are provided with comprehensive assistance in reaching patients effectively, as well as innovative tools for building customer trust. Currently, the Dbam o Zdrowie programme brings together more than two thousand pharmacies all over Poland. The distinctive orange-coloured pharmacies can be found all over the country – at shopping malls, on the main streets of big cities, in small towns and villages.
In 2008, the strong growth of retail pharmacy sales prompted the Company's Management Board to operate retail sales as a separate business line. The reorganisation resulted in setting up Central European Pharmaceutical Distribution N.V., a holding company registered in the Netherlands, responsible for the development of the pharmaceutical retail network in Central Europe. Currently, CEDP N.V. manages the largest family of pharmacies in Poland, and one of the largest in Europe, unified under the Dbam o Zdrowie brand.
May 2009 saw the separation of the fourth, newest business line – services for manufacturers. The Company launched operations in this segment by signing an agreement on the provision of direct sales services with a global pharmaceutical firm. In this system, PGF is the logistics operator which, acting on behalf of the manufacturer, stores goods and distributes them directly to pharmacies. Currently, Pharmalink Sp. z o.o. is the Group member responsible for rendering services to manufacturers.
Changes within the Group have consisted in launching operations in new areas, while gradually expanding their geographical reach. Nowadays, through its subsidiaries, PGF also operates on the Lithuanian and UK markets. However, the Group's plans provide for its expansion onto other European markets.
Given the Group's international growth, in 2011 the Management Board of PGF S.A. resolved to reorganise it. As part of that effort, all the four business lines have been organised into independently operating companies. Three of those lines, namely sales to hospitals, retail sales and services for manufacturers, had already been organised in this way. In 2011, the spin-off and transfer of the wholesale business to PGF Hurt Sp. z o.o. was formally completed. The holding company has been charged with the owner's supervision over all the subsidiaries. The reorganisation process ended with the change of the Company's name from PGF S.A. to Pelion S.A.
When choosing a new name, the Company looked for synonyms of such virtues as: respect for tradition, stability, courage, power, force and dynamic growth. The Company found all those in the word Pelion, invoking ancient history and the beginnings of pharmacy and medicine. Pelion is the mountain at the foot of which, according to Greek mythology, there dwelt in his grotto centaur Chiron – a teacher of gods and heroes. Among Chiron's pupils there was Asclepios, also known as Aesculapius, who in the mythical grotto used herbal mixtures to cure the ill. The plants he used to prepare the mixtures still cover the slopes of the mountain. Aesculapius is to this day recognised as the patron of physicians and pharmacists.
All values professed by the Company are reflected in the Pelion logotype. In addition to representing a mountain, the triangle symbolises the ideal form, harmony and stable growth. The green colour evokes hope, healing and growing stock prices.
The changes were undertaken to ensure operational transparency and explicitly define the scopes of responsibility of the individual areas of the Pelion Healthcare Group.
The new structure clearly emphasises that the Pelion Healthcare Group operates on the healthcare market closely connected with pharmaceuticals, while building sustainable value on the capital market.