Grifols Among Forbes '500 Best Employers'

Two panelists appearing in today’s Jobs Network program at the North Carolina Biotechnology Center will be representing one of the world’s best employers.

Tessy Malone, Pharm.D., senior director of marketing, and Beth Tootle, HR business partner, both work at the North Carolina arm of Spanish pharmaceutical and health care company Grifols, which has just been ranked 415th in the list of “500 World’s Best Employers.”

Grifols is one of only three Spanish companies included in the top-500 listing by Forbes Magazine and Statista.

Malone and Tootle will be joined on the panel by Drew Applefield, Ph.D., director of business development at Precision Biosciences, and Sarah Caley, Ph.D., director of business and strategy at Bioventus.

The four are participating in a moderated panel discussion about scientists who have transitioned to commercial/business roles at local life science companies.

Grifols made the list of best companies after Statista analyzed more than 360,000 proposals and recommendations related to different aspects of human resource management, submitted by employees in 61 different countries via large-scale global and regional surveys. Grifols obtained 75.51 points out of a maximum of 100, confirming its solid position and its reputation, both internally and externally, as a global employer.

One of the key goals of Grifols’ Human Resources activities is to ensure the professional development of a workforce of more than 18,000 employees in 30 countries, which it recognizes as essential to the challenge of delivering global growth and promoting competitiveness. The company established the Grifols Academy in 2009 to provide training opportunities for its employees. To date, the Academy has delivered a wide range of courses to more than 10,000 members of staff, providing more than 320,000 hours of training.

Grifols also advocates an equal opportunities policy with respect to recruitment, training, remuneration, promotion and professional development. This commitment helps the company to attract and retain teams of professionals who research, develop, manufacture and sell products that improve the health and well-being of patients across the globe.

The company’s workforce has grown by 29 percent over the last three years:

• 2014 – 13,980
• 2015 – 14,730 (+ 5.4%)
• 2016 – 15,109 (+ 2.6%)
• 2017 – 18,071 (+19.6%)

In 2011 Grifols completed a $3.4 billion acquisition of Talecris Biotherapeutics including a corporate headquarters in RTP and a production campus in Clayton.

Grifols expanded the Clayton site with a new $370 million plasma fractionation plant, completed in 2014.

The company announced in March 2016 it would invest another $210 million in two new plants at the site: a $90 million plasma fractionation plant and a $120 million purification plant for intravenous immunoglobulin.

The plasma fractionation plant is scheduled to start production in 2022. It will extract proteins used to treat rare and chronic diseases such as immune deficiencies, hemophilia, genetic emphysema and neurological disease.

The purification plant is scheduled to begin production in late 2021. It will purify immunoglobulin for use in treating several diseases of the immune system and other disorders.

The Clayton campus employs about 1,600 people, making it the largest employer in Johnston County. The RTP facility employs about 400, and about 500 work at plasma-donation centers throughout North Carolina.