Dusseldorf Whether in the cinema, in the restaurant or in the football stadium: almost everywhere, citizens have to explain their immune status. For many, showing the QR code on the smartphone has become as normal as grabbing a mask. But not everyone has a smartphone – and if the battery is empty, you are left without a vaccination certificate. Older people also often want a tangible ID card.
Tamim Al-Marie has a solution for exactly this problem. With his start-up Apo Pharma Immun from Leipzig, he prints the individual QR codes on plastic cards the size of a credit card. He has christened this “immune card”.
What looks so simple has developed into a million-dollar business in a very short time. In the first year of business alone, the 26-year-old and his 20 employees provided around four million customers with cards and generated sales of 32 million euros. “Of course that makes you proud and was not foreseeable,” says Al-Marie.
Al-Marie is young, eloquent and has long internalized the start-up vocabulary. But the founder with Syrian roots does not live in the start-up metropolis of Berlin, but in Leipzig. He didn’t study economics but pharmacy in Halle. He only received his license to practice as a pharmacist in January. He founded his first company, Apo Pharma Immun, which also sells the immune card, right after his studies.
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His company is already a success story. Customers can buy the ID cards in more than every second pharmacy. Alternatively, the cards are also available on the start-up’s website. The initial issuance of the ID card costs 9.90 euros. Updates for later booster vaccinations against Corona cost an additional EUR 7.40. As an analogue alternative to cell phones, users can show their pass at the entrance and have it scanned.
Originally, the Leipzig resident had a different idea. In spring 2021, he and his team built an app that works in a similar way to the Corona warning app from the Robert Koch Institute (RKI). He initially wanted to make the app known through the pharmacies in the region. Up to 3000 customers of these pharmacies have downloaded the app. That’s a lot for a start-up in its early stages.
Up to 100,000 orders a day
However, many pharmacies were initially skeptical because the app was not certified. “At that time there was not even a legal basis for any certifications,” reports the founder. In addition to the app, the young company had the QR codes printed on small plastic cards. “We just added it as a service,” remembers Al-Marie.
He quickly noticed that interest in the maps was significantly higher than in the app. When the RKI finally made it possible to save and display the vaccination certificates in the warning app, the young company decided to print the RKI QR code on the cards. “In retrospect, the right decision,” says Al-Marie.
Within a few days, the young company is selling 20,000 tickets a day. When the 2G rule applies in many places in December and the yellow vaccination book is no longer sufficient, demand explodes: up to 100,000 orders arrive in Leipzig every day. During this time, seven printers throughout Germany produce the immune card.
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At times, Al-Marie and his colleagues can no longer keep up with the orders. Some pharmacies complain that deliveries are not arriving and end cooperation. This is one of the reasons why Al-Marie now sends blanks to the partner pharmacies so that they can print them themselves. However, the vast majority of pharmacies remain loyal to the start-up.
The company now works with around 10,000 of a total of 18,000 pharmacies. A crucial success factor, Al-Marie knows. “Elderly people in particular prefer to shop in the local pharmacy rather than in online shops,” he reports.
Maria Elvenich can confirm this observation. She works as a saleswoman in a pharmacy in Cologne and has already issued dozens of cards. The pharmacy will not get rich from the offer. Nevertheless, the card is a good additional service, reports the pharmaceutical clerk: “Elderly people in particular gratefully accept the offer.”
If you want, you can also make the card yourself
That’s why Al-Marie is relaxed about the rapidly growing competition, which mostly sells exclusively online. However, his company took action against some dubious providers. Otherwise, he takes the numerous imitators sportily: “As long as it doesn’t say ‘immune card’, anyone who wants to should sell the cards.” He has had the term trademarked.
His company does not have to obtain a permit from the state because it is a private offer. Therefore, the Federal Ministry of Health does not want to comment on the offer. But at least: “The digital vaccination certificate is cryptographically secured against changes,” confirms a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Health to the Handelsblatt. “In this respect, it is also possible to show a printout with the corresponding QR code.”
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If you want to save the 9.90 euros for the immune card or don’t want to wait up to seven days for the card, you can simply print out and laminate the RKI QR code yourself. Al-Marie is aware that his product is very easy to imitate. However, most people take the easy route and buy the immunity card from him anyway.
He doesn’t want to reveal exactly how much he earns from a ticket. Of the retail price of EUR 9.90, EUR 3.57 goes to the pharmacy. To do this, he has to pay for the printers, marketing and even a call center, because there are now up to 6,000 calls a day.
However, he can buy the tickets themselves very cheaply. Small quantities are already available on the Internet for twelve cents apiece. After deducting all costs, the estimated margin is around two euros. Al-Marie reveals only this much: “In the sixth month we were profitable.”
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The institute does not want to comment on the question of why the RKI, as the publisher of the app, does not provide a similar analogue offer. “To be honest, I was also a bit surprised that this topic was forgotten,” says Al-Marie. He can’t help but smile in the video interview.
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