Read the Conversation
Meeting highlights:
- Rapid Turnaround in Colombia: Upon taking over Siegfried Colombia, Espinosa shifted focus toward profitability, retail channel growth, and underutilized therapeutic segments, achieving in 6 months the projected annual profits and more than 20% sales growth compared to the same period last year.
- Major Systemic Challenges: She highlighted severe strains in Colombia's healthcare system, including cash flow issues, regulatory delays, pricing pressures, and medicine shortages, compounded by high dependence on imported active ingredients.
- Commitment to Local Growth: Despite these challenges, Siegfried sees long-term potential in Colombia, investing in a plant expansion and aiming to become a regional hub for high-quality, affordable medicines, and with high-standard environmental policies by 2026.
- Regional Integration and Partnerships: Through alliances like the one with IFC, Siegfried is promoting access to affordable medicines across Colombia and Central America, emphasizing local production with high quality.
- Leadership Philosophy and Industry Call-to-Action: Espinosa champions purpose-driven, inclusive leadership, encourages trust-building through knowledge-sharing, and calls on the sector to focus on innovation, resilience, and collective responsibility to drive change.
EF: What mission did you set for yourself when you made the move to Colombia? What did you want to achieve in this role?
VE: When I arrived, I set out to make Siegfried recognized for its investment capacity and ambitious projects, capitalizing on untapped market opportunities, products, and therapeutic classes. I also aimed to find alternatives to improve portfolio payments and boost profitability, ensuring a better balance between sales channels.
At the beginning, public sales were slightly higher than private sales, so we decided to balance them. In six months, sales grew more than 20% to the same period last year. We have also struck a balance between channels and are now more focused on retail, promoting products that require specialized medical visits and prescriptions.
What I initially envisioned has already become a reality. I’m pleased to have this competitive team. The opportunities Colombia gives us as a company allow us to think differently and make things happen.
EF: How does Siegfried view 2025?
VE: The main challenge is the transformation of the healthcare model to make it more sustainable. There's a lack of cash flow on the institutional channel, which results in the inability to dispense medications due to non-payment. But companies need to be paid and remain profitable.
The pharmaceutical sector in Colombia is highly dependent on imported inputs, which increases costs. We also face shortages of essential drugs, exacerbated by supply chain bottlenecks and regulatory changes. When we purchase APIs, we must do so in advance; however, the registration process with local authorities typically takes three to four years. In the meantime, the APIs fall short in these areas.
There’s also pressure from the government to reduce costs and lower prices, even as demand and regulatory complexity increase. It’s difficult to balance that when we don’t have products registered on time or plants operating efficiently. Therefore, we attempt to offset this by selling some products at higher prices in more profitable markets, thereby supporting those we provide to institutional channels.
This year, there's also a major transformation of the health system. The reform presents new challenges and opportunities for integration within the pharmaceutical sector. It aims to shift toward a preventive, primary care model. But the population also demands high-cost medications, such as those for rare diseases and cancer, which are expensive. So, there's a mismatch between what people need and what the system can currently provide.
We are in constant dialogue with public institutions; however, there is a lot of work to do yet, and we believe we can build together a better health system for Colombian people. We continue to raise awareness of what could happen if we’re not paid and can’t supply medicines. There is a population of 53 million here, and not all are being served, neither in the way the government expects nor in the way we, as pharmaceutical companies, would like to.
EF: What makes Colombia attractive to Siegfried, both as a market and as a place to manufacture?
VE: We saw and still believe in Colombia as a business opportunity due to its strategic location and population. We haven’t yet reached the entire country, but we see potential. Internal barriers give us a new sight to strengthen the national industry and support the government’s objective of improving public healthcare.
We’re working toward becoming a hub for other countries in the region. We already have a plant in Bogotá and are expanding one adjacent to it, which is expected to begin production by the end of 2026. It will be one of the largest plants in Colombia, producing high-quality and innovative products. We’re optimistic that doing business here will become easier over time. While current challenges are significant, they’re also temporary. If we don’t prepare now, we risk remaining a small player. However, we believe we can become the largest company in Colombia’s pharmaceutical market.
EF: How is your partnership with the IFC helping expand access to affordable, high-quality medicines across Colombia and Central America?
VE: Colombia is a strategic partner for Central America. Even though those countries are independent in their decisions, we collaborate closely. Our alliance with the IFC encompasses cooperation across technical, social, cultural, and economic domains to enhance health and quality of life in the region.
We believe in their mission, and they see us as the right partner to drive this forward. That’s how our partnership began, through shared values. The alliance also encourages us to source raw materials locally and adapt our production processes to offer affordable, high-quality products. We ensure that these changes don’t compromise Siegfried’s reputation for quality.
EF: How can we build trust between stakeholders in Colombia?
VE: We’re working to promote local dialogue through pharmaceutical chambers and local authorities to address key health issues and bring benefits to the population. We also share knowledge with regulatory and health registration agencies to help them know more about the pharmaceutical sector and how we ensure production on time and accessible medicines with innovation and at the forefront of new trends. If we don’t face these challenges as one sector, we cannot build trust, not just as Siegfried, but across the entire industry.
EF: From a leadership perspective, how do you ensure your team shares that vision and stays motivated?
VE: Across Siegfried, we live by the slogan “Awareness for Life.” This helps us remain flexible in diverse environments and cultures. It applies to all of us, not just top leadership, aligning with market realities while maintaining a purpose of innovation and personal growth.
We promote values-based, collaborative, and adaptive leadership. Cultural transformation begins at the top, rooted in equity and respect. That’s also part of our work with the IFC. There’s nothing more rewarding than seeing an idea become reality and improve lives, both internally and externally. We encourage our team to propose new ideas, and we work to implement them in ways that benefit everyone. That’s at the core of Siegfried’s mission in every country.
EF: We’re seeing more women in executive roles, especially in the pharmaceutical sector. If you could give three pieces of advice to young women in Latin America who want to follow in your footsteps, what would they be?
VE: The first one, and maybe it sounds cliché, but we must believe in ourselves, not as women versus men, but as human beings with the same capacities to achieve anything we want.
We must face challenges with integrity, values, intelligence, and with heart. People often say women lead with heart and men with logic. However, if we stop thinking that way, we can blend both approaches and become better leaders, professionals, and people.
Focus on what you have, not on what you lack. That mindset will brighten your life and inspire others. Here, our committee is 60% women. I encourage everyone to challenge themselves and seek more opportunities than they imagined. Throughout my career, I have been fortunate to have had people who believed in me. Women must find those people, mentors, who invest in them differently, who push them to grow. Sometimes their advice may be hard to hear, but later you realize they helped you find a deeper mission. The most important advice is: the answer is inside you. External noise can distract you. Stay focused on your goals.
EF: This interview will be published in Bloomberg Businessweek, and we aim to share a positive message. Even amid challenges, opportunities always arise. What would you like to say to fellow executives and the sector as a whole?
VE: This is a constantly changing environment and sector. But I believe that it’s not what happens to us that defines us, but what we do with it. Challenges are constant. Each person is responsible for moving forward and finding opportunities by believing in themselves and in their country. I'm not Colombian, I’m Ecuadorian, but I think in Colombia, because I’m leading this company here. There is also considerable room for growth.
The future of this industry and this country is in everyone’s hands. We must challenge ourselves to find new ways of doing business and move forward with a shared message. This battle cannot be won without knowledge, collaboration, and without encouraging dialogue with the people around us. We must continue this path to become even more relevant for the pharmaceutical and healthcare sectors, always with a focus on people.
