VILNIUS - Jelfa, the Polish pharmaceutical plant owned by Lithuanian manufacture Sanitas, halted production on Nov. 10 due to a defective medicine produced a year prior.
Polish authorities decided to stop production after one ampule of Corhydron 250 was found to contain a different drug, manufactured in the summer of 2005. The move has sent company, union, and Lithuanian representatives into a flurry of action that has resulted in an outside investigation of business at the Jelfa plant.
The scandal over the anti-allergy and anti-asthma medicine Corhydron took an unpredictable turn when Polish policy makers declared that Sanitas was a cover for unnamed Russian companies and their interests.
On Nov. 10, the Lithuanian government stepped in and asked for an explanation on behalf of the company.
"We are extremely concerned about the situation, and are trying to set things straight via diplomatic channels. The Lithuanian embassy in Poland has been instructed appropriately. Now we are awaiting responses from relevant Polish authorities," Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas told the Baltic News Service.
To make matters worse, Jelfa's trade unions staged a protest on Nov. 9, an attempt to politicize the incident during last weekend's Polish municipal elections. The trade unions spoke out against the "politicized suspension of production at Jelfa." Company employees are expected to take leave during the shutdown.
In order to calm union fears of a politically motivated shutdown, the company has brought in an independent German expert to investigate the situation.
"We have hired a well-known expert, an experienced German professional to make conclusions on the matter. Several Polish pharmaceutical inspectors are working at the company on a regular basis. However, their number is too small on the Polish scale," Saulius Jurgelenas, Sanitas' CEO, told the Baltic News Service on Nov. 13.
Jurgelenas said that he would meet with representatives of Jelfa's trade unions on Nov. 20 and would offer the employees to take leave.
"We will ask employees to use this as an opportunity to give a helping hand to the company," Jurgelenas said.
The 980 employees at the Jelfa facility will be paid regular wages if they decline the company's proposal to take vacation.
Sanitas has an authorized share capital of 31.1 million litas (9 million euros). The Kaunas-based company is 90.3 percent owned by the Lithuanian investment group Invalda, along with individual and corporate investment funds Amber Trust II SCA and Citigroup Venture Capital International Jersey
Sanitas purchased Jelfa earlier this year. The Lithuanian group also owns the Slovak pharmaceutical plant Hoechst-Biotika.
Sanitas posted 12.9 million litas in net profits last year, up from 4.6 million litas the previous year, on sales of 35.9 million litas. Earnings per share more than doubled to 1.3 litas.
