Read the Conversation
Meeting highlights:
- Johannes Inama’s Mission when Appointed: Take Angelini’s footprint in Germany to the next level; accelerate growth and become a partner of choice / Change in leadership structure to be closer to customers and patients.
- Strategic Importance of the German Market: In alignment with Angelini Pharma’s expansion across Europe, Germany is a must for its robust pharmaceutical market and economy.
- Angelini Pharma’s Portfolio to Success: 2 businesses: a prescription portfolio focused on innovative therapies for brain health and a consumer health portfolio
- Angelini Pharma Shaping the German Landscape: Raising awareness in the community, establishing partners of choice to stakeholders, and defining treatment goals with clinicians.
- Building Company Culture: Fostering courage, responsibility, and accountability to consolidate a positive and thriving company culture in Germany.
- Johannes Inama’s Goals for the Future: Be remembered for impacting patients’ lives.
EF: What was the mission you set for yourself when you joined Angelini, and how has it evolved over the past year?
JI: Angelini Germany has an interesting mix of heritage and youth. While Angelini is a company boasting over 100 years of history, its German affiliate is quite young, having been established in the summer of 2020, right in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Initially focused on consumer health, the organization soon expanded by introducing the brain health pillar in early 2021. By the time I joined at the start of 2024, the affiliate was three to four years into its journey and still carried the energy and challenges of a startup.
My mission upon joining was to take this young, dynamic organization and elevate it to the next level—accelerating growth and maturity while building on the foundational hard work laid during those challenging early years. This includes establishing Angelini Pharma in Germany as a trusted and preferred partner for all stakeholders.
Looking back at the past year, it was a time of significant change. Upon arriving, I reviewed the existing setup, made adjustments to the leadership structure by removing a layer to bring us closer to our customers, and ensured our leadership team could directly address the needs of both customers and patients. Changes were also made in the field operations on both the prescription and consumer health sides, focusing our investments more rigorously to ensure we could succeed in our priority areas. These efforts have created a solid platform to accelerate growth in 2025 and move closer to fulfilling the mission I set out to achieve.
EF: Where do you see the greatest potential for growth, and how significant a role do you believe Germany can play within the broader Angelini Group in the years ahead?
JI: When reflecting on Angelini’s history, it is evident that the company’s roots are deeply tied to Italy, where it was initially focused. Through remarkable innovation, Angelini became a household name in its home country. Later, the company began branching out, initially into Spain and Portugal, where affiliates have been established for over 30 years. Subsequently, expansion continued into Central and Eastern Europe.
Around five to six years ago, the company’s leadership and the family behind Angelini decided to pursue a broader European expansion. A European growth strategy, however, would be incomplete without Germany, given its position as the largest economy and country in Europe. This recognition led to the establishment of the German affiliate in 2020, followed soon after by new affiliates in France and the UK, all part of Angelini’s vision for a stronger European presence.
Germany plays a pivotal role in this expansion strategy. It is destined to become a core pillar of Angelini Pharma’s international success. While the initial years have been focused on building a foundation, the strategic importance of the German market to Angelini’s broader objectives is undeniable. The strong commitment from Angelini Pharma to develop, grow, and accelerate its presence in Germany is both evident and motivating, making this market a critical piece of the company’s future.
EF: When introducing your portfolio to a new market, how do you approach its management and prioritize resources effectively?
JI: One of the key aspects that attracted me to Angelini was its broad and diverse portfolio. Over the past 20-plus years, my focus has primarily been on prescription medicine, both in primary and secondary care. What stood out about Angelini is its unique ability to integrate both prescription and consumer health under one umbrella. Here in Germany, we manage both pillars, and I would say they are equally significant to our operations.
On the prescription side, the focus is relatively straightforward. Currently, our portfolio includes one innovative therapy for epilepsy, acquired in 2021 through the purchase of its global ex-US rights. This therapy forms the foundation of Angelini’s prescription business in Germany, and our efforts are fully dedicated to its growth.
The consumer health portfolio, on the other hand, is broader, encompassing both legacy and acquired brands. For instance, we have Tantum Verde, a heritage brand in the consumer healthcare space, as well as Thermacare, a heat patch for pain relief, which was brought in through licensing. These products are at more advanced stages of market maturity compared to our epilepsy therapy, making them critical financial pillars for the organization.
Our approach focuses on maintaining and growing the strong consumer health pillar, primarily around the key brands Tantum Verde and Thermacare. At the same time, we are committed to accelerating the development and growth of our epilepsy therapy, which is still in the early stages of its lifecycle. Together, these priorities ensure a balanced and sustainable strategy for the success of our operations in Germany.
EF: A goal for you over the next two to three years is to take a more active role in shaping the German healthcare landscape. Could you share more about this vision?
JI: Clearly, our focus needs to be on our core competencies—on what we excel at. One of our key areas of expertise is brain health, an area in which Angelini has a long history. We have been involved in providing solutions for conditions like depression, schizophrenia, and, more recently, epilepsy. In Germany, epilepsy is our current primary focus.
However, our engagement in the healthcare environment extends beyond just offering therapies. A good example of this is our Headway initiative, which aims to bring brain health—encompassing both psychological and neurological conditions—into the spotlight as a key societal concern. Our ambition in Germany, as in other countries, is to engage more broadly in the healthcare ecosystem. This involves working closely with healthcare providers, clinicians, researchers, patient groups, policymakers, and payers to develop better solutions for those suffering from brain health conditions.
It is important to note that our approach is not to disrupt the larger macro environment, given our comparatively smaller portfolio. Instead, it is a targeted strategy focused on positively evolving and improving the healthcare environment in Germany, particularly for patients in the field of brain health.
EF: Could you elaborate on how you are promoting your initiatives around epilepsy to patients and other stakeholders?
JI: You might think that Germany has one of the best healthcare systems in the world, and I would assume that’s true. Yet, in a healthcare system like ours, more than 50% of patients with epilepsy remain suboptimally treated. This occurs for several reasons, such as late diagnosis, long delays between diagnosis and starting treatment, or the treatment they receive not being the most effective for their needs. As a result, patients continue to suffer from seizures, many of which could be prevented. Factors like adherence and compliance also play a significant role. So, what are we doing about this?
We are focusing on three main pillars. First, we aim to raise awareness across the broadest possible community, including people directly affected by epilepsy, caregivers, and those who should be concerned, such as policy-makers. To do this, we have collaborated with clinicians in Germany and partnered with IQVIA to develop data. This work is leading to publications that will generate evidence about the current situation, ultimately helping us to find specific solutions for identified problems.
The second pillar is to position ourselves as a key partner within these various stakeholder groups. We want to bring people together, as we did with a roundtable discussion in Berlin last year under the Headway umbrella. In this session, we united clinicians, researchers, and patient groups to discuss the challenges and potential solutions. While we recognize that we cannot solve all the problems ourselves, we strive to be the connecting force, supporting and enabling others to develop these solutions.
The third pillar involves working closely with clinicians, particularly neurologists and epileptologists, to shift how treatment goals for epilepsy are set. One of the reasons more than 50% of patients with epilepsy in Germany are not receiving optimal treatment is that the treatment goals are often set too modestly, focusing on reducing the number of seizures rather than aiming for seizure freedom. We are advocating for a more ambitious goal: striving for complete seizure freedom. While we understand that this may not be achievable for all patients, we believe that without aiming for this higher goal, clinicians may become satisfied with partial success and stop too soon.
These three pillars—raising awareness, facilitating collaboration, and driving a shift in treatment goals—are key to improving the lives of people with epilepsy in Germany and addressing the challenges in the healthcare system.
EF: How do you ensure the right people are in the right positions, and how do you cultivate the organizational culture?
JI: When I arrived, I was fortunate to find a team that I was really happy with. We have a great group of people in the organization who are eager to take on challenges and understand what it means to join a company in its early stages. However, because our organization has both consumer health and prescription sides and sometimes people come with products they bring with them, we have a very diverse mix of individuals with different backgrounds and experiences. This diversity can sometimes create tension, but I see it as a positive force. I believe that positive tension is what drives us forward, brings out the best in us, and helps us perform at our highest level.
Building culture is an ongoing process that takes time. We have three strong pillars for our success: our two business units, consumer health and prescription medicine, and culture. At a global level, we have defined core behaviors that we want to stand for, and these work well for us. Two key behaviors I focus on are courage and responsibility.
Courage is especially important in a young organization because it allows us to try new things and do things differently. One of the advantages of being a smaller organization is that we can be more experimental and agile, trying things out more freely. Of course, we need to take accountability for our actions and learn from both successes and failures. Responsibility and accountability go hand in hand with courage, and these are behaviors we emphasize daily in our organization.
The majority of people in the team really enjoy this environment, where they can take accountability and experiment. Of course, there will always be some who realize this culture may not be for them, and that is perfectly fine. I believe it is important to create an environment where individuals can excel if they align with this culture, and if they feel it’s not the right fit, we can still find solutions together.
EF: Let us fast forward 10 years into the future. Looking back at this stage of your life, what would you like to be remembered for?
JI: Ultimately, I would like to be remembered for finding meaningful ways to truly make a difference in people's health. That is the fundamental purpose of what we do, and it drives everything I am passionate about.
In the field of brain health, as well as through our consumer health portfolio, we aim to improve lives. While the impact of some consumer health products might not seem as severe as others, they significantly enhance the quality of life, which remains at the heart of our mission. This is what gives meaning to my work and what I believe we must continue to prioritize.
Looking ahead 10 years and reflecting back—not just on the first year but on the entire journey—it would be incredible to see tangible progress. On the consumer health side, we have a strong portfolio, and it would be wonderful to grow it further, reaching even more people with the exceptional products we offer.
In brain health, we are only at the beginning of understanding how we can truly impact lives. Whether through innovative therapies or by continuously expanding Angelini's portfolio, our goal is to touch more lives meaningfully. I would like to lead an organization that becomes a trusted partner—a "glue" that connects clinicians, patient groups, and other stakeholders to advance patient care and improve the quality of life for those living with brain health conditions.
More than just providing therapies, I envision us addressing the broader sociological challenges, like stigma and social impacts, that often accompany brain health conditions. When key stakeholders look for solutions in this field, I want them to see us as their partner of choice—an organization they turn to because we walk alongside them in advancing care and making a real difference. I think that would be incredible.
When I first arrived, I found a truly fantastic group of people—talented individuals with diverse backgrounds. However, there were instances where they had not fully gelled as a cohesive team.
Looking back in 10 years, I would love to see that I played a role in building that cohesion. It would be remarkable to know that two seemingly different businesses—brain health and consumer health—found a shared foundation, not just in their missions but in their culture.
To see these teams gel so deeply that they become one strong, unified organization would be extraordinary. It is a lofty goal, perhaps even a dream, but taking meaningful steps in that direction would be phenomenal. Building that sense of unity and collaboration would not only strengthen the organization but also amplify the impact we can make together.
