About
An Estonian company that builds quality systems for medicines manufacturers and uses local AI to keep them in order. The experience comes from designing and building five pharmaceutical plants.
Veiko Saluste
Managing director · Qualified Person 1999–2026Why I do this. I trained as a veterinarian, but I always wanted to make medicines. The chance came in 1999. I was sales manager for the CIS countries at Interchemie when its plant in Castenray, the Netherlands, lost its GMP certificate. I set up oral medicines manufacturing in a rented workshop of the Tallinn Pharmaceutical Factory and obtained my first manufacturing licence there.
I had seen what losing GMP costs. Since then I have studied GMP deliberately, and I still do. I have designed and built five plant projects. In four of them I also chose the equipment, wrote the quality system and acted as Qualified Person.
In every plant the hardest part of the quality system was not writing it. It was keeping it consistent. One SOP changes, and a form, a specification and the product quality review quietly fall out of line. Too often the inspector is the first to notice.
In 2025 I started building a second brain for my own work and saw what local AI can do for a quality system: after a change, compare the agreed documents with each other again and show where they no longer agree. It finds, and people decide. After twenty-seven years as a Qualified Person I now bring this to manufacturers who keep their own systems in order. I am not named on a manufacturing authorisation today. What a second brain is →
| Year | Plant project | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 2002 | Medicines manufacturing plant, Viimsi, Estonia (Interchemie Werken De Adelaar Eesti) | Design, construction, equipment, quality system, QP |
| 2008 | Expansion of the Viimsi plant (Interchemie Werken De Adelaar Eesti) | Design, construction, equipment, quality system, QP |
| 2017 | Packaging plant, Maardu, Estonia (for Interchemie Werken De Adelaar Eesti) | Design, construction, equipment, quality system, QP |
| 2017 | Powders and packaging plant, Kaunas, Lithuania | Design and construction |
| 2024 | Sterile manufacturing with two lines built to Annex 1, Tallinn, Estonia (PharmaPark Production) | Design, construction, equipment, quality system, QP |
Company names describe past projects. These companies are not clients of EFG and do not endorse it.
The company
Eesti Farmaatsia Grupp OÜ was founded in Estonia in 2004. Its work on AI-supported quality systems started in 2026. We are a small team on purpose: the person who checks your documents is the person who has built and signed for quality systems himself. Finance and design are in the hands of Evelyn Saluste.
The name EPHAG
EPHAG® is a registered trade mark of Eesti Farmaatsia Grupp OÜ (Estonia, registration No 57983). The name goes back to 1913, when pharmacists in Tallinn founded the Estländische Pharmazeutische Handelsgesellschaft EPHAG (Estonian Pharmaceutical Trading Company). Its laboratory on Harju Street, run by C. R. Lehbert and R. Fick, received its licence on 2 May 1914. In 1931 it merged with the Kurrot & Benkson laboratory, and in 1937 it moved to Tondi. The company was nationalised in 1940. It later became the Tallinn Pharmaceutical Factory, which is today part of the Grindeks group.
We are not the legal successor of the 1913 company. We carry the name with respect for the pharmacists who started pharmaceutical manufacturing in Estonia, and we aim to keep it in honour and good repute. There is also a personal link: Veiko Saluste obtained his first medicines manufacturing licence in 1999 in a rented workshop of Tallinna Farmaatsiatehas, the factory that grew out of the 1913 company.
Source: tft.ee, history of the Tallinn Pharmaceutical Factory
What we believe
- AI is a tool. The decision stays with a qualified person.
- Every finding must point to a source anyone can check.
- Your documents stay at your site. What leaves with us is agreed in writing.
- We publish how we test, including what we miss.