The Roche Group celebrated its 90th birthday in Spain at the end of November. The Swiss company, which invests around half a billion euros a year in its various divisions, took stock of its current figures. It employs more than 2,500 people in three companies (Farma in Madrid and Diagnostics and Diabetes Care at the Sant Cugat Campus in Barcelona), a logistics and distribution centre in Getafe (Madrid) and a leading global technology centre, Informatics Madrid.

Roche began operations in Barcelona in 1933 under the name Productos Roche. Today it focuses on areas such as oncology, haematology, ophthalmology, immunology and rare diseases, with an increasingly personalised approach.

Investment in R&D&I
Roche Farma España leads the Group's biomedical R&D&I with an annual investment of more than 150 million euros, including 65.9 million euros for clinical research. As a result of this investment, more than 300 clinical trials involving 80 molecules are currently underway in almost 200 hospitals, involving almost 12,000 patients and 1,000 healthcare professionals.

Patrick Wallach, General Manager of Roche Pharmaceuticals Spain, explained the key role played by our country, “It is one of the most important and a priority country in the world for our company, because not only are we a leader in clinical research within the Group, along with the United States and China, but we are also a benchmark in technological innovation applied to health, and we can say that there is not a single Roche Farma molecule that has not been fully involved in its development.”

Integrated disease management
More than 400 experts work at the Sant Cugat Campus in software development, data engineering, bioengineering and diagnostic algorithms, among other areas, in order to develop the digital solutions with which Roche Diagnostics aims to contribute to integrated disease management. Adriana Rubio, General Manager of Roche Diagnostics in Spain, emphasised that “an accurate diagnosis at the right time generates information for decision-making”, and therefore “having the right diagnostic tools is key to ensuring the best possible healthcare and the sustainability of healthcare systems”.

Josep Maria Vallmajó, General Manager of Roche Diabetes Care Spain, recalled that diabetes is another priority area to which Roche has been committed for 40 years, “We have a wide range of solutions for diabetes care and patient monitoring, including developments for mobile devices, such as our mySugr app, or solutions using artificial intelligence, big data and data integration.”

Sara Gómez, Head of Roche Informatics Madrid, explained the company's role in technological solutions, “We firmly believe that technology is a key tool to help us achieve our mission: to improve the lives of patients. It would be impossible to be at the forefront of the development of medicines and diagnostic tools if we had not embraced the potential of technology in a company like Roche.”

^{Photo: Roche
Adriana Rubio (Roche Diagnostics), Josep Maria Vallmajó (Roche Diabetes Care), Sara Gómez (Roche Informatics Madrid) and Patrick Wallach (Roche Farma).}