Merck announced that Belén Garijo, Member of the Executive Board and CEO Healthcare, has received a special career-recognition award from the Fundamed Foundation in Madrid, Spain. Fundamed is a Spanish non-profit foundation established in 2001 whose main objective is to promote biomedical research and patient organization participation in health policy-making at all levels.
During the presentation of the award, Enrique Sánchez de León Pérez, former Health Minister in Spain and President of Fundamed, said, “As the Fundamed Foundation awards are celebrating their 15th birthday, we wanted to recognize the most influential Spanish pharmaceutical executive over the past 15 years with a special award. The board was of the unanimous opinion that this special award should go to Belén Garijo, not only because she is the most successful pharmaceutical executive with one the most extensive and comprehensive international careers that Spain has ever seen, but most importantly because her success is built on strong values and ethics, always putting patients’ interests first.”
“I am honored to receive the prestigious Fundamed award and grateful for this recognition. Offering value to patients and customers has been both a major goal and a continuous stimulus throughout my professional career,” said Garijo. “Having worked for many companies over my career, I can now say that I am particularly proud to work for Merck because as a company we bring great value to individual patients, healthcare professionals and society.”
This special award was decided by Fundamed’s Board of Trustees composed of Enrique Sánchez de León, Santiago de Quiroga, Fundamed Vice-President, Vicente Díaz Sagredo, Fundamed Trustee, and Jesus Díaz Olmo, Secretary of the Fundamed Board.
During Garijo’s career of nearly 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry, she has held positions with Abbott Laboratories and Sanofi in a number of countries. She joined Merck in 2011 as Chief Operating Officer, was promoted to Chief Executive Officer of the Biopharma business in 2013 and was appointed member of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck’s Healthcare business sector in 2015.
