About us
Abacus Medicine is a fast-growing parallel importer of medicine in Europe.
Who is Abacus Medicine?
Abacus Medicine was founded in 2004 by CEO Flemming Wagner and his father John Wagner (1932-2018). Since then, Abacus Medicine has grown continuously and has established itself among the market leaders in the European parallel import industry.
Abacus Medicine represents the parallel import-branch of the Abacus Medicine Group. Abacus Medicine and our parallel import-business remains the largest contributor to our financial results and continuous growth.
If you are looking for career opportunities, financial information and corporate news, visit the Abacus Medicine Group’s website.
The history of Abacus Medicine
Abacus Medicine was founded on the basis of a growing call for competition in the Danish pharmaceutical market to the benefit of Danish hospitals. To answer this call, Flemming and John Wagner founded Abacus Medicine with the purpose of carrying out parallel import and parallel distribution of original medicine within the EU.
Not long after it was founded, Abacus Medicine entered the Danish pharmaceutical market. Following this successful entrance, the company expanded its reach to Germany and Sweden. Since then, Abacus Medicine has pursued a vigorous and highly successful multi-market strategy, and our parallel import services are now available in 12 European markets with more to come.
Apart from our many active sales markets, we also have sales offices in 6 European countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Spain and United Kingdom. Our office in Copenhagen, Denmark functions as our headquarters for both the Group and Abacus Medicine.
Our strategy
Because healthcare systems and national reimbursement rules differ substantially from country to country, a deep knowledge of each individual market is a cornerstone in the success of Abacus Medicine.
Abacus Medicine is a market leader in the most expensive types of medicines, such as chemotherapies for cancer treatment or immunosuppressive drugs used in connection with organ transplants. Prices of 3,000 euros or more are standard for these medicines.
We pursue an ambitious growth strategy through selling many types of medicines in many different countries. We invest heavily in entering new markets and in increasing the number of medicines that we hold a license to sell. Most of our competitors focus on fewer and less expensive products in a few countries or even a single country.
Our presence in many different markets adds complexity to our business. To navigate this complexity, we have developed advanced methods and IT systems for complex data analysis in real time. This creates an important competitive advantage, as it allows us to buy and sell in the right markets, operate efficiently in logistics and production, and reduce risk by limiting our stocks of expensive medicines.
We strongly believe in growing our markets continuously, because as we grow, we are able to make an ever-increasing contribution to our society by providing access to life-critical medicine at affordable prices. To us, this is the hallmark of a sustainable business model.
Sustainability in Abacus Medicine
Sustainability is governed at Group-level in the Abacus Medicine Group. This means that our sustainability initiatives are applicable for all companies in the Group.
Yet, some of our sustainability programs are heavily linked to Abacus Medicine’s parallel import-business, such as our Waste-program.
As a parallel importer, we repackage each pack of medicine which results in an increase in packaging material waste. This led us to investigate how we can manage this waste in the best and most sustainable way.
Paper products made from Abacus Medicine waste
In 2019, we phased out putting new labels on the original manufacturer’s boxes from most of our production and introduced replica boxes instead. This enables us to provide products of a high and consistent quality to our customers.
However, this new solution also brought us new environmental challenges. As Abacus Medicine discards large amounts of used packaging materials, we wanted to find a more sustainable destruction method.
We now use a shredder that cuts used boxes into small pieces. By sorting and shredding the waste, it is now possible to recycle the old packaging materials into new paper.
Today, we send more than 10 tons of paper waste for recycling each month. After leaving Abacus Medicine’s production facility in Hungary, the shredded paper goes through various phases of preparation and shaping by several companies to become ready for use in the production of new paper products such as napkins and toilet paper. The new solution also has positive, if modest, economic benefits. By selling our waste as raw material for recycling we gain a small income and save on destruction costs for a combined total of around EUR 1,000 per month.
You can read more about our overall sustainability strategy and programs on our Group-site.
Goal #3:
Good Health and Well-being, including:
Target 3.8: “achieve universal health coverage (UHC), including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health care services, and access to safe, effective, quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.”
Better access. Better healthcare
The Abacus Medicine Group recognizes and supports the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals. We strive to continue our contribution to the
international community we are a part of, and we acknowledge this responsibility and the impact we have.
Our sustainability efforts aim to contribute to solving the major global challenges being addressed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The Abacus Medicine
Group’s strategy and targets focus on three SDGs that hold particular influence to our business. This is where we believe we can create the biggest positive impact at scale through the knowledge, products and solutions we provide to our customers and society at large.
As a Group consisting of a variety of pharmaceutical companies, we believe that our strongest contribution to our society lies within SDG 3. With our broad range of services within parallel distribution, pharmaceutical areas such as clinical trials and unlicensed medicines as well as general pharmaceutical wholesale and direct-to-patient services, we have one of the broadest lists of beneficiaries. We work hard every day to ensure safe and stable access to medicine. As such, SDG 3 ties closely and directly with our core business and all operations in our company.
Sustainability Report 2023
Employees, environment and more. How did we progress and what are our plans?
