Most people wait until something breaks before they fix it. Marija Miletović Djurković thinks that’s the wrong way to approach health.
As Founder and CEO of Emi Pharm, SAVE HEALTH, and SAVE HEALTH MICROBIOME, she’s built her companies on a straightforward idea: prevent problems instead of just treating them. Focus on understanding, not quick fixes. Build trust, not just transactions.
She didn’t start in healthcare. She came from finance and economics, where she learned how businesses work. But she wanted to do more than analyze numbers. She wanted to improve how people actually live.
So, she made the shift. From finance to pharmaceuticals. From market analysis to microbiome research. It took time, but each step moved her toward the same goal: creating a healthcare approach based on prevention, knowledge, and real partnerships with patients.
“Economics taught me how to understand the market,” Marija Miletović Djurković says. “But life taught me that health is far more than a market — it is a system of trust.”
That belief shapes everything she does.
Let’s explore the inspiring journey of Marija Miletović Djurković and how she is redefining healthcare through science and compassion!
The Spark that Started It All
Every journey begins with awareness. For Marija Miletović Djurković, the spark came when she noticed how disconnected patients often felt from the system meant to care for them. The pharmaceutical industry was efficient but impersonal. She realized that while many companies supplied medicine, few offered genuine partnership or understanding. Out of that insight, Emi Pharm was born in 2008.
From the very beginning, her goal was not simply to sell medicine but to build trust. Emi Pharm became known for reliability and integrity, values that shaped every relationship with doctors, pharmacists, and patients. Competing against larger international players was an uphill battle, and credibility had to be earned one promise at a time. Regulatory compliance, logistics, and market pressure were constant challenges, yet each success strengthened the company’s reputation.
As the years went on, the company began to evolve. Emi Pharm started to expand its portfolio to include probiotic and preventive products, marking a shift away from a purely curative approach. The business had grown, but so had its purpose. That shift became the foundation of something larger: a philosophy of prevention that would eventually take shape as SAVE HEALTH.
From Numbers to Nurture
Before she entered healthcare, Marija Miletović Djurković worked in the world of finance and economics. This background gave her an analytical mindset and an understanding of how systems create value. But as her career progressed, she began to feel that financial success alone could not define true impact. She wanted to build something that improved lives in measurable, meaningful ways.
Her transition, as she explains, was both logical and personal. “My transition from economics and finance into healthcare was a natural evolution driven by a desire to create meaningful, measurable impact,” she reflects.
The skills she gained in economics became powerful tools in her new field. They allowed her to see healthcare as a complete ecosystem, where balance and efficiency matter as much as compassion and science. She learned to think strategically about how innovation, regulation, and patient needs could work together.
Marija’s vision was to make health accessible, sustainable, and emotionally resonant. She believed that the two worlds she had lived in finance and healthcare, could complement each other. With economic structure and medical purpose combined, she began to shape a business model that was not only successful but human.
SAVE HEALTH: A Culture of Prevention
By 2017, Marija Miletović Djurković had spent nearly a decade building a pharmaceutical company grounded in trust. Yet, she felt that something essential was still missing. The healthcare system, despite its advancements, remained reactive. It waited for illness before acting. Marija Miletović Djurković wanted to change that mindset.
The result was SAVE HEALTH, a platform that promotes education, prevention, and the everyday habits that sustain long-term well-being. It was designed to empower individuals to take ownership of their health by focusing on nutrition, lifestyle, and balance.
“I never wanted to offer just another supplement,” says Marija Miletović Djurković. “I wanted to offer meaning — to help people understand that health is not protected from the outside, but from within.”
SAVE HEALTH introduced probiotic and functional products that supported gut health and immune balance. It became an educational movement as much as a brand, encouraging people to see wellness as a proactive choice. The organization reflected Marija’s growing belief that prevention was not only more humane but also more sustainable. Health, she often said, begins at home; in the small choices that shape how we live every day.
The Rise of SAVE HEALTH MICROBIOME
A few years later, her work took an even more ambitious turn. Advances in science were revealing the central role of the human microbiome — the community of trillions of microorganisms that live inside us. The more Marija Miletović Djurković learned, the more convinced she became that this invisible ecosystem held the key to the future of medicine. In 2020, she founded SAVE HEALTH MICROBIOME, a company dedicated to exploring and applying microbiota science for better health.
For Marija Miletović Djurković, this was not just another business initiative. It was a personal and scientific calling. “The microbiota is like an orchestra,” Marija Miletović Djurković explains. “When it is in harmony, the body functions beautifully. When it’s not — the body loses its rhythm.”
She saw in the microbiome a natural bridge between science and everyday life. SAVE HEALTH MICROBIOME was built to translate complex research into real solutions, offering probiotic and microbiota-supportive products grounded in evidence. It represented the culmination of her belief that healthcare should evolve from fixing illness to sustaining balance.
Imunolak: The Power of Prevention
Among her proudest achievements is Imunolak, a probiotic formulation that has become a symbol of preventive living in Serbia and beyond. The project began as scientific curiosity, a desire to understand how beneficial bacteria could strengthen the body before disease took hold.
Imunolak was developed through extensive research and collaboration with scientists and clinicians. The results were striking. Balanced microbiota was shown to enhance immunity, digestion, and even mood. What began as an experiment soon became a trusted name in preventive health.
“I don’t believe in greatness measured by budget,” she says. “I believe in greatness measured by ideas. And microbiota is an idea that will forever change how we understand health.”
Imunolak was never intended to be just a commercial product. It became part of people’s daily routines, a gentle reminder that health can be maintained through care and consistency. The science behind it provided validation, but its impact came from experience. It showed that modern biotechnology could fit seamlessly into everyday life and redefine how individuals approach wellness.
Connecting Science, Innovation, and People
The ability to connect science, innovation, and business is one of Marija’s defining strengths. She often describes her role as that of a translator, someone who bridges the gap between laboratories and living rooms. She listens closely to researchers, patients, and policymakers, ensuring that every innovation addresses genuine needs rather than abstract theories.
Her business sense helps her navigate the complexities of the healthcare industry, balancing research and regulation with strategic growth. The result is a model that blends scientific depth with human purpose. For Marija Miletović Djurković, innovation means more than discovery; it means application and accessibility.
“The world of health must learn to listen,” she says. “The microbiota speaks quietly — but once we understand it, we learn everything about ourselves.”
Through her work, she continues to turn listening into action, shaping a healthcare sector that values understanding as much as invention.
Leadership with Purpose
Leadership, in Marija’s eyes, begins with empathy. She leads through people rather than process, creating an environment where trust and communication are valued as much as results. Her approach is rooted in authenticity. She shows up for her team with integrity and clarity, believing that consistency builds confidence.
“Loyalty isn’t built through contracts, but through shared purpose,” she says. “My team knows that everything we do has deeper meaning. That’s why they stand with me — through challenges and triumphs alike.”
She believes in giving her team room to grow and the psychological safety to express ideas freely. Each person is encouraged to see how their role contributes to a larger purpose. When people understand why their work matters, she believes, they bring more creativity and commitment to it.
Her leadership style has helped her organizations remain resilient in an industry that is constantly evolving. She treats loyalty not as a demand, but as a mutual exchange of trust and shared vision.
The Next Frontier: Personalized Medicine
Looking to the future, Marija Miletović Djurković sees a world where healthcare becomes personal. The integration of microbiome research, genomics, and artificial intelligence is paving the way for precision medicine that understands each individual at a biological level. In her view, this evolution will transform how doctors predict, prevent, and treat disease.
She believes that microbiota-based interventions will soon become standard practice. From dietary strategies to live biotherapeutics and microbial community transplants, these innovations will allow medicine to treat not just the human body but its microbial ecosystem as well.
“Health is not a product,” she concludes. “Health is balance. And only when we understand that — we truly begin to live.”
To her, this balance represents the future of healthcare: a system that looks beyond symptoms to the underlying harmony between body and microbiota.
A Global Vision for Preventive Health
Marija’s ambitions reach far beyond Serbia. She envisions establishing a Global Center for Microbiota, an international hub for research, collaboration, and innovation. The center would bring together scientists, clinicians, and data experts to explore how microbiota can be used to predict and prevent disease.
This initiative would focus on developing early detection tools for conditions like diabetes, obesity, inflammatory diseases, and even certain cancers. It would also promote personalized nutrition and lifestyle interventions designed to maintain microbial balance and prevent illness before it begins.
The potential impact is immense: fewer chronic diseases, lower healthcare costs, and a stronger global emphasis on prevention rather than treatment. Marija Miletović Djurković often describes the project as a public health moonshot, one that could redefine how humanity sustains its health in the 21st century.
Innovation that Listens
Throughout her career, Marija Miletović Djurković has believed that the true power of innovation lies in understanding human experience. Her approach is not about chasing disruption for its own sake but about creating meaningful, lasting change. She sees healthcare as a complex network of biology, policy, behavior, and culture. Real transformation, she believes, comes from working within that complexity, not trying to simplify it.
She has made it her mission to speak both the language of science and the language of people. By doing so, she bridges worlds that often operate in isolation. Her companies stand as proof that progress happens when curiosity meets compassion.
Guiding the Next Generation
Marija’s advice to future leaders is clear. “Start with purpose, stay with discipline,” she says. She believes healthcare is more than an industry. “It is personal, political, and deeply human.” Success comes from knowing why you started and holding onto that reason through challenges and change.
She encourages young innovators to understand the full landscape of healthcare and to build models that are financially sustainable, ethically sound, and grounded in science. “Don’t wait to feel ready,” she says. “Healthcare needs bold, smart, empathetic leaders, and often the ones who change it are those who simply decided to start before they had all the answers.”
