This founder solves the vaccination certificate problem of millions

The Leipzig-based start-up Apo Pharma Immun is one of the most important in Corona-Germany: it prints the QR codes of the EU vaccination certificates on plastic cards. Half of all pharmacies work with it. Now it has to fend off imitators.

Tamim Al-Marie is a friendly person who likes to laugh and talk, but never digresses. Sentences like "I must have had the right instinct," sound modest to him. But he doesn't have to be. Tamim Al-Marie has achieved something that only few founders succeed in doing: He was in the right place at the right time, was one of the first to recognize the opportunity - and had a business model ready before others.

It took him just six months for his company to become profitable after it was founded - and that while growing at the same time. With his start-up, he reached up to 100,000 new customers a day in some cases in November. Al-Marie is the man behind the Immune Card. Those who use it don't have to show a yellow vaccination card or the QR code on their smartphone. That alone is practical for all those whose cell phone battery is constantly empty. In the meantime, the first imitators also see it that way, and Al-Marie is trying to take legal action against some of them.

The first time he was in the right place to later develop the immune card was in 2017, when Vision.a, a digital conference for the pharmaceutical and pharmacy industry, was held for the second time. The stage at Berlin's Radialsystem was bathed in red-orange light. Al-Marie, a pharmacy student at the time, was one of the 300 participants. At the conference, he learned about the industry's vision for the future. "I decided I wanted to be part of that future - and after graduation, I wanted to start my own startup to make the pharmacy world more digital," he says. Not long after, he was working as a student trainee at Leipzig-based company builder 2b Ahead Ventures.

Al-Marie fulfilled his dream a few years later. In January 2021, he received his license to practice medicine in Halle. The city is both a place of study and a hometown for him; his father once came to the GDR from Syria. In February, he founded his first start-up, Apo Pharma Immun GmbH. 2b Ahead Ventures contributed seed capital of 34,000 euros.

Then everything happened very quickly. Within a few months, Al-Marie made his company one of the most important in Corona-Germany. Apo Pharma Immun prints the QR codes of the official EU vaccination certificates on so-called "immune cards" made of plastic. Customers can order them directly at the pharmacy. More than three million are already in circulation. A card costs 9.99 euros. Those who are boosted and need a second one pay only 7.40 euros for it.

Apo Pharma Immun was profitable after six months

Demand was so high at times that Al-Marie's team had to work with six to seven print shops. The waiting time increased from seven days to weeks. At the time, between eight and ten people worked part- and full-time for Al-Marie; today there are 20, including IT specialists, pharmacists and students.

"I have not yet become a millionaire, nor do I have a yacht," says Al-Marie. The margin they tightly calculated. "There's more to card production than meets the eye. Marketing alone is a big part of the cost, and the pharmacies get about 3.50 euros per card." Last year's sales were around 30 million euros, and profits were much lower, according to the founder.

Meanwhile, the competition has also awakened. Al-Marie thinks it's perfectly fine for pharmacies to copy his concept and print their own solutions: "I see it more as confirmation." However, he is taking action against trademark infringements by other providers, some of which are dubious, he says: "The main issue here is that in some cases attempts are being made to deceive customers on less reputable websites," he says. "If you Googled the keyword 'immune card,' you quickly landed on dubious other websites that claimed to sell our product." Al-Marie then contacted his lawyers. They told him, he said, that in some cases there might not even be a real company behind it - and customers might not even receive a product after making a purchase. "In the interest of our customers, we took action against these dubious sites."

How recognized is the immune card?

But how reputable is the Immunkarte itself? Is it recognized everywhere? Getting an official answer to this question is not easy. The Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) does not comment on offers from individual providers. A spokeswoman merely pointed out that "showing a printout with the corresponding QR code" is possible. When asked, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) also only states that it does not comment on products.

The Federal Police is more explicit: "If the Immune Card contains the valid QR code of the digital EU vaccination certificate of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the information on the Immune Card can be scanned and checked with the Covpasscheck app of the RKI, the Immune Card is a proof of vaccination in the sense of the Coronavirus Entry Regulation," it says.

This means that in principle it is also valid for entry checks in restaurants or hotels, as a spokeswoman for the German Hotel and Restaurant Association (Dehoga) confirms in conversation: "The important thing is that the code can be scanned and is valid. In addition, the identity must be established." Products such as the Immunkarte are useful additions to the paper and smartphone solution.