History of the Macedonian Company Alkaloid

1936 – 1946

It is well-known that the first manufacturing plant that Alkaloid grew from, were private ownership of the family Ognjanovich. In the beginning there were 15 workers that in two plants were manufacturing some 350 kg of pharmaceutical raw material. Back then, the factory has been the sprout of a new industrial branch - new not only locally but also in the region. The main business has been making opium alkaloids, respectively morphine base extraction and its synthesizing till codeine.

The quality of the Macedonian opium poppy heads, locally considered as "black gold" for ages, has been the crucial reason for opening this processing capacity. After the Second World War, the summer of 1945 was of historical significance. By decision of the government of the - at the time Federation of Peoples Republic of Yugoslavia and of Peoples Republic of Macedonia, the factory has been nationalized the 22 June. It had been - back then, a company with 17 employees and only one of them with university level education. That is when the continuous growth of Alkaloid started and what makes it one of the first industrial capacities in Republic of Macedonia and the - at the time - Yugoslavian community.

Due to the specificity of its production, during its first years after the war, the factory has a treatment of a capacity of special significance and is under direct jurisdiction of the Main Directorate for Medical Production in Belgrade.

1946 - 1956

As a production capacity of high importance for the Yugoslavian state at the time, on October 31, 1946 Alkaloid was registered as state owned factory for producing alkaloids. The title remains until 1950, when the jurisdiction is shifted from federal level to the General Directorate for the Chemical Industry of Macedonia. This is the period when the first steps of Alkaloid were undertaken for increasing its production, for modernizing the technology, expanding the manufacturing assortment and improving the qualification...