We will remember 2020 as the year of Corona. The pandemic has turned almost everything in our lives completely upside down - nothing seems to be the same anymore. This year, we realized that life is about so much more - namely cohesion, health and solidarity. Together, we faced great challenges. But it also showed us what we can achieve in unity.
DiaSys employees look back on exciting projects and personal highlights from 2020.
The year 2020 was indeed not a highlight for any of us. Nevertheless, we achieved a lot together and learned that personal contact and team cohesion are more important than ever. Although we worked on many great projects in the marketing communications department in 2020, my highlights were the launch of our blog in January and the interviews with Alexandra Martins and Sarah Lechner in October.
On our blog, we now regularly publish interesting facts about laboratory medicine, new products and our partners worldwide. In April, we published several articles about the COVID-19 virus, its effects on the human body and presented relevant parameters that support the diagnosis of this disease.
Mid-year, we came up with the idea of interviewing several colleagues to introduce the people behind the DiaSys brand. In these interviews, they talk about their way to DiaSys, their daily work, give advice and tell us what makes them unique. The interviews with Alexandra Martins and Sarah Lechner were very inspiring and informative to me. I am already looking forward to many more in 2021.
The year 2020 has taught us not to take anything for granted. Once again, DiaSys and the R&D have shown that research and development on new projects are carried out efficiently and target-oriented even during a health and economic crisis.
As more became known about the virus over the year, R&D has already started testing for an in-house developed Sars-Cov-2 antibody test. Initial data were collected in a short time and an innovative patent was submitted in August 2020. A clinical study was also launched quickly, so the data were available for the market launch within a month. Of course, none of this would have been possible without the tireless efforts of DiaSys and R&D staff.
Despite the difficult conditions, DiaSys has managed to draw positive lessons from the crisis and make its contribution in containing and fighting the pandemic. Many thanks to all R&D employees who continued working on many projects with commitment and motivation, thus forming the foundation for the way out of the crisis.
Since the end of 2019, I have a new area of responsibility.
After taking care of the "internal affairs" at quality management department for more than ten years, I had to change my point of view after moving to the marketing department (as product manager systems). Since then, my focus is more on the international market for in-vitro diagnostics, our customers and their requirements.
One of my first tasks in the new department was to establish the "Osmoseur” devices as a separate product category. Let's remember: Osmosers are water treatment systems that produce ultrapure water from regular tap water using various filtration processes and ion exchange. This water is used to operate IVD analyzers. Since reverse osmosis, which previously gave the name to the device, is only one step in water treatment, the name was changed. This was the first official act. Thus, "Osmoseur" became "Water Purification System" (WPS). The systems are available in three versions: O classic, O mini and O maxi.
My first task was to create a hand out for the systems so that our sales colleagues could promote the devices to the customers. It took several weeks until the pictures were perfect and the text met our requirements! An advertising brochure has different requirements than a SOP (Standard Operation Procedure). In the end, the result was perfect. The new brochure is available on our homepage.
2020, a year I was so looking forward to for a variety of reasons. Then the Coronavirus happened! On Friday, March 13, the official announcement that all working parents had been dreading for days: "Schools and kindergarten will close starting on Monday, March 16!" Now we had to act fast. Although I have never been in the home office before, our IT department directly provided a laptop for me, set everything up and from Monday on, I could easily work from home and take care of my children. For the next few weeks, I had three jobs at once: my job in the MarCom department at DiaSys, teaching our schoolchild and taking care of the kindergarten child. This was not easy at all, but we managed it. I was so happy when the "normal" life started in summer, and I was able to go to the office and see my colleagues again. I missed that very much.
These moments showed me how important social contacts and togetherness are. It is great that we can also meet and talk digitally, but it does not replace being together physically. At this point, I would like to say a big thank you to DiaSys for giving me the flexibility to do my job, regardless of time and place. I appreciate it because I know many examples where it just does not work.
While I am writing these lines here, I am sitting in my home office again, thanks to hard lockdown, to take care of my two boys at the same time. Let us hope this pandemic will end soon, so we can all get our old lives back safe and sound.
In the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we dealt with the introduction of rapid tests of the company Sugentech from March 2020 on.
After the introduction of the antibody rapid test at Kovalent (our daughter company in Brazil), we also planned the introduction of the COVID-19 rapid tests for the DiaSys Germany. This enabled us to provide a rapid antigen test in time of the official product release.
In order to contribute to the fight against the pandemic, we are now offering this expanded product group, which consists of various COVID-19 and influenza rapid tests, now also worldwide.
My first major project as a product manager at DiaSys was the launch of Procalcitonin FS. After the sales launch, I looked forward to visiting our customers. However, contact restrictions made this impossible. After testing several videoconferencing programs, it was a great pleasure to offer two workshops on PCT FS to our customers. Overall, the online events went very well. It was refreshing to experience and build on a good partnership with our customers.
Worries about getting and spreading the virus despite protective measures increasingly depressed our minds despite the nice weather. Working from home also has its disadvantages, especially when it comes to spending the evening with friends, sports and hobbies. Nevertheless, regardless of the changing Corona policies, I went on several hikes and races in 2020. The fresh air especially helps me clear my head. I completed my first 10K run in under an hour during a digital charity run in autumn with some exercise.
I am looking forward to focusing on the good things, finding new solutions, and getting through the pandemic stronger with the help of all our efforts.