Greetings from the German Hemophilia Society and from the Gesellschaft für Thrombose- und Hämostaseforschung

Professor Heimburger, I have been asked by the physicians of the German Hemophilia Society and of the Gesellschaft für Thrombose- und Hämostaseforschung (GTH) to honor you today. We would like your work to be recognized, and this recognition is above all to thank you; a personal thank you and thanks from the German physicians treating hemophilia, whether or not they are present here today. We would all like to thank you for the development of a FVIII concentrate free of viral contamination that has saved so many of our patients from terrible suffering and protected them from infections. I believe that this development came just at the right time before the HIV catastrophe.

I would like to add a personal memory: I recall very clearly a brief conversation with you during the Fibrinolysis Congress in Paris, when you remarked that you had an idea, the idea of pasteurizing factor concentrates. The idea became fact, and this fact became therapy. We thank you in the name of the hemophiliacs and also the patients with von Willebrand disease, who have come to rely on this therapy.

Pasteurized preparations continue to be a milestone on the way to the development of hemophilia therapy. When I look at your work in this light, I am reminded of Livingstone's words: ``I am ready to go anywhere, provided that there is a way forward.'' The way that Dr. Heimburger introduced them into hemophilia therapy was truly an advance, a progress, an innovation. Of course, this was not easy to accomplish and had to be fought through, even from economic considerations. I remember how I had to justify the pasteurized product in 1983 to the Health Insurers in Frankfurt, to at least obtain it for the HIV-seronegative children in Frankfurt.

This Symposium will demonstrate not only the advances but also the advantages that we discussed so often when the preparations were introduced, and for which we had to fight. Now, 18 years later, we all can see what has been achieved using this therapy and how it has helped our patients. This is why I, as a representative of the physicians of the German Hemophilia Society, as well as the scientific members of the GTH, want to thank you most warmly for your innovation. We are also grateful to Prof. Dr. Jürgens and particularly to Dr. Pollmann for organizing this meeting, for I believe that the time is ripe to express our thanks and also, Dr. Heimburger, to honor you and your work. We, the physicians from the DHG and those from the GTH, trust and hope that viral infections belong to the past and thank you for your service.