Armed with a chemistry degree and an MBA, Janneke van der Kamp entered the workforce determined to make her mark – somehow.
“I’d realized while studying I wasn’t really a researcher,” she tells The CEO Magazine. “I wanted to do something totally different. After working with several businesses, van der Kamp came to the conclusion that the pharmaceutical industry was the only place where her interests converged.
“I had a passion for science, an interest in the business side of things and a purpose-driven nature of wanting to do something useful for the world,” she says. “Pharma was the logical choice.”
Delivering to patients
Van der Kamp’s journey began at Swiss firm Novartis, a chapter that would span almost 20 years.
“This phase of my career was more on the commercial side,” she says. “When you actually have the medicine in your hands, you have to work out how to deliver it to patients around the world.”
By the end of her time there, she was Head of Europe with US$9 billion in sales under her leadership.
“I really enjoyed my time in the company and the opportunities,” she says. “I got to grow, lead larger teams and have an impact on the patients we all serve when we work in pharma.”
Feeling that she’d outgrown the role, van der Kamp sought a smaller company for her next role and became Chief Commercial Officer at Grünenthal, a mid-size pharmaceutical company focused on pain medicines.
“In the pharmaceutical ecosystem, you have the massive operations, the tiny biotechs with maybe one medicine in development, and then the mid-sized companies, which is where I am now.”
Today, van der Kamp is CEO of specialty pharmaceutical company Norgine, a family-owned business founded in 1906. The company takes its name from its first product: sodium alginate extract derived from North Sea seaweed by Norgine’s founder.
“In all fairness, I didn’t know Norgine before I got the phone call,” van der Kamp admits.
Despite the company’s 100-year history, it has operated in the background. Van der Kamp attributes this to the very specific nature of its work.
“They were very focused on gastroenterology as a disease area,” she says. “Now, we’re very much expanding our therapeutic focus areas while concentrating on Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand.”
Specializing for innovation
The move is a clear indicator that Norgine is a dynamic, growing company expanding beyond its wheelhouse and into more specialized areas such as rare diseases. It’s a factor that serves to engage the Norgine team as well as attract potential partners, just as it did van der Kamp. She quickly discovered the company shared her desire to positively impact lives.
“I felt it was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, so I made the move,” she says.
And when she stepped into the CEO role in late 2024, van der Kamp’s own non-hierarchical leadership style was an instant fit.
“I think of the company as an upside-down pyramid,” she says. “Everybody who interacts with patients and doctors or who manufactures our medicines – they’re at the top of the company,” she adds.
“Everybody else, myself included, has to support them, rather than the other way around. I’m at the bottom of the pyramid.”
Advertisement
Far from the coalface, van der Kamp’s challenge is bringing quality pharmaceuticals to the complicated healthcare landscape of Europe.
“Every country has its own rules and reimbursement,” she says. “We have two company pillars: consumer health and prescription medicines. This gives us a breadth of experience that other companies don’t have.”
Manufactured at Norgine’s plant in Wales, Movicol is an over-the-counter laxative available at pharmacies. Meanwhile, many of its prescription medicines are produced in France, where the company is investing close to US$50 million to expand its Dreux manufacturing site between now and the end of 2028.
“The pillars are distinct, but they can learn from each other,” van der Kamp says. “There’s so much potential yet to be unleashed here at Norgine. We have a fantastic heritage and a stable European presence, but there’s so much more to do.”
Looking to the future
Tackling that to-do list is a team of naturally motivated employees empowered to make decisions at a level that will advance the company.
“You can only be agile as a business if you empower your people,” van der Kamp says. “The speed here has really changed, especially since Goldman Sachs took a majority stake in 2022. We’re flying the plane as we build it.”
Helping to fly the plane is Norgine’s stable of partners and allies.
“We’ve in-licenced three products that were developed in the United States,” van der Kamp says.
“Many biotechnology companies develop the medicines and bring them to patients in the United States, but they don’t know how to do that in Europe. You need a whole different infrastructure and expertise to do that.”
Enter Norgine, which has the strength in Europe to handle that side of the business.
“In the last three years, we’ve done three such deals, plus we’ve entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Theravia, thereby really boosting our rare disease portfolio,” she says.
Equally important are Norgine’s partners, including Dow Industrial Solutions, X4 Pharmaceuticals and Parexel International, which share the company’s commitment to excellence.
“Whoever we work with, it’s not a transactional interaction. You have to trust each other and have some shared values to create long-term, sustainable partnerships,” she says.
“Parexel International is our partner in, for example, the very specific domain of pharmacovigilance,” van der Kamp says of the contract research organization that conducts clinical trials for pharmaceutical clients.
“Together, we follow up on whether patients are experiencing side effects. They’re a very cool company, and I think very similar to us in terms of ambition.”
Norgine’s size belies its formidable nature, especially given its European ambitions. Van der Kamp believes the company is in a sweet spot to achieve its goals.
“We’re not huge; we’re not tiny,” she says. “We are very focused on Europe and bringing medicines to patients there, and we’re perfectly sized and shaped to do that.”
