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04 February 2021
Understanding patients and supporting healthcare professionals in Spain
Grünenthal is the leading provider of pain solutions in Spain, where more than 4 million people were treated with our products in 2019. Our local team has a constant focus on innovation – and we put patients at the heart of everything we do.
Our activities in Spain began in 1979, when Grünenthal became a shareholder of Laboratorios Andrómaco. In 2009, the three companies that were operating under the Grünenthal brand in Spain merged to become Grünenthal Pharma, S.A. This gave birth to the organisation that we operate in Spain today. We are headquartered in Madrid, and currently employ well over 250 people across the country. We focus on pain treatments, and we are the country’s leading provider of these medicines.
Pain is a global problem and represents a significant burden on people’s lives in Spain. It affects around 17 percent of the population and generates substantial costs for the economy, with recent studies showing that the average person in Spain loses 14 days of work each year due to pain1. As an expert in pain management, we are taking a leading role in responding to this challenge by engaging with stakeholders from across the healthcare sector to improve the quality of treatment for patients in Spain. This includes working side-by-side with several Spanish scientific organisations to develop training material and courses about pain management. These efforts aim to give physicians, pharmacists and nursing staff a deeper understanding of the impact of pain and the best ways to improve patients’ quality of life.
“Innovation and patient-centricity are moving us closer towards our vision of a world free of pain.”
Our commitment to society
For us, people come first. That’s why our Spanish affiliate has been listed as a Great Place to Work every year since we first participated in this initiative in 2011. In 2020, we carried out a new edition of this survey with amazing results: 98% of our employees consider our company a Great Place to Work. We also received a special award from the Spanish Association of Pharmacists (AEFI) in 2019, in recognition of our commitment to training and developing our employees. We extend our commitment to society, and actively seek to be a socially responsible company that protects the local environment and supports the most vulnerable people in our communities. This is why we have been promoting employee volunteering and Corporate Social Responsibility activities for many years.
This commitment has been further strengthened during the COVID-19 crisis. Under the campaign “The Most Human Face of Grünenthal”, we were involved in several activities during the toughest months of the lockdown that helped to fight this pandemic in Spain, which is one of the worst affected countries in the world. Grünenthal Spain offered a 100-percent discount on the purchase of hospital medicines from the company. This offer run for four months (from April to July) with the aim of relieving the pressure on the Spanish health service during the hardest period of the lockdown. We have also donated 4,000 FFP2 face masks to the anaesthesiology and pain services departments at 20 hospitals in the most severely affected territories in Spain. Our employees have also been involved in activities such as donating money to the Red Cross and the Federation of Food Banks in Spain. These actions show their commitment, empathy and solidarity with everybody in our society.
This touching campaign has not gone unnoticed and Grünenthal Spain has been awarded the Pasteur Prize for Medicine, Pharmacy and Biomedical Research 2020 by the European Association for Economics and Competitiveness. This prestigious award recognizes our commitment to improve the quality of life for people in pain and help those who suffer most. The jury of these awards has taken into account our record in the field of pain, as well as the solidarity shown in all these initiatives carried out under the campaign “The Most Human Face of Grünenthal”. João Simões, Managing Director of Grünenthal Spain, received this award on behalf of Grünenthal Spain.
Moving forward, Grünenthal Spain is committed to engaging in open collaboration to accelerate progress towards better outcomes for pain patients. This includes stepping up our efforts to tackle pain in children by organising workshops to highlight this important unmet medical need. We engage in collaborative research projects that target this specific problem. On top of this, we enter into increasingly frequent dialogue with patients to understand their needs in more detail. In this way, we are aiming to have an even greater positive impact on patients in Spain.
We also constantly adapt to an evolving environment. More than ever, technology is now our ally. We have accelerated our digital transformation and are now at the forefront of this transformation in Spain. By integrating digital channels alongside traditional channels, we have been able to improve our interactions with stakeholders and bring our medicines to more patients who need them. During the Covid-19 outbreak, we held the first virtual congress on Covid-19, which was attended by more than 10,000 healthcare professionals from 42 different countries.
To find out more please check our Spanish country website www.grunenthal.es
1
Torralba A, Miquel A, Darba J. Situación actual del dolor crónico en España: iniciativa “Pain Proposal“. Rev Soc Esp Dolor 2014; 21(1):16-22.