- What is the word that best describes the year 2024?
The word that has dominated the vocabulary amongst our team members during the year 2024 is Democratization: the core of our mission is to make the best healthcare available to as many patients as possible in our region, which we like to call New Europe. And this year, we have made significant progress towards this purpose: either by establishing several new robotic surgery programs in Romania – predominantly in private hospitals – or by expanding the outreach of our precision genetics & imaging capacity in Iasi, in Athens, and soon in Timisoara or by making our simulation and training offerings available to young healthcare professionals and launching our own AI-enabled medical publications research platform called Prometheus.
- What were your main concerns for the business you lead in 2024? How do the company/group’s results compare to the forecasts made at the beginning of the year?
As everywhere else in the developed world, the healthcare needs in Romania and in our entire region are increasing fast. Our cutting-edge technologies and therapies find themselves in the forefront of this trend and as a result, we are required to expand our capabilities and systems much faster than expected. This calls for intensive hiring of new talent and upgrading of support systems at a faster pace than what the market can offer, or our organization can absorb. As we say however, those are good problems to have, while chances eventually to make ends meet in 2025 are significantly higher than in 2005 and 2015 when we were less prepared and solid than today. The financial outcomes of 2024 at Group level are precisely as expected and this gives us the confidence and the means to proceed with all necessary investments looking ahead.
- How have the overlapping crises, the geopolitical situation (the ongoing war in Ukraine and the outbreak of the conflict in Israel), and the perspective of electoral rounds impacted your company’s activity?
Although headquartered in Romania, our diversified investments in six EU countries on the one hand, and the low direct dependence on the state budgets on the other, allows us to navigate the political challenges of Romania with a high degree of confidence. As citizens of this part of the world, we closely observe the developments while we stay focused on our mission and on the matters which we can control or, at least, influence. It has always been our credo that the ultimate form of good citizenship is doing your job in the best possible terms.
- What are the strengths and weaknesses of the Romanian business environment in the current social and economic context?
Since 1997 when I first moved to Bucharest, I have been asked numerous times what kept me here and how come we selected Romania as our headquarters for the activities of our entire group including Greece, the country where I was born and raised. My response has been two-faceted and related to the number “16”: the economic and fiscal predictability on the one hand encapsulated in the 16% corporate tax constant for almost twenty years, and the abundant talent on the other jeopardized by the 16% decrease of the population since 1989.
- Now, at the end of a complex electoral year, what are your expectations from the Romanian authorities?
Our expectations from the Romanian government have been consistent for decades regardless of the electoral cycle: taking all legislative measures to enable the healthcare professionals in the public sector and to provide all patients, regardless of their economic status, with the best therapies available nowadays in the world. Romania has had a pole position in this part of the world when it comes to medical innovation; lately it has been just the private sector, however, that has kept up with the developments. Equity in healthcare is the ultimate form of democracy, so it is up to the government to make sure that all patients – not just the ones with access to private hospitals – benefit from the latest therapies.
- What are the three main points of your business strategy for next year?
As our group is focused on fighting the three most life-threatening diseases, we intend to extend our leverage on the Power of Precision throughout the entire patient journey and the continuum of care: from the prediction of risks through the exponential progress of genetics to the earliest and most precise diagnosis through enhanced medical imaging down to therapies with minimal invasiveness through surgical robotics. To make this value proposition accessible to as many patients as possible in Romania, we are committed to deploy capital and provide public and private entities with long-term financing solutions, and we will intensify our investments in education and lifelong learning in partnership with Medical Schools and other academic institutions. Lastly, we will continue to invest in developing our own health-tech platforms in collaboration with brilliant engineering and medical minds in our region.
- What do you think will be the biggest global challenges, as well as the key challenges for your industry/sector, in 2025?
As to our region: while our world is becoming more volatile, uncertain and in many cases ambiguous and the geopolitical multipolarity seems to turn into the new status quo, countries like Romania positioned in this geographical and cultural crossroad of East and West will need to be decisive and coherent on their strategic affiliations. As to our industry, technological advancements are taking place at a multiple speed versus just ten years ago, generating unimaginable efficiencies for their possessors: it is up to the latter, their values and priorities to determine whether this new world will be bearing a resemblance to a utopia rather than to a dystopia.