Women in Pharmacy

In today's world, we sometimes still face situations of inequality between men and women, with women being the most disadvantaged. We still have a long way to go, but we wanted to share some significant data about all this. Read carefully what we tell you below: today, a ''feminised profession' is considered to be one in which the percentage of women compared with men exceeds 55%. Therefore, our sector, at 65.7%, is one of those 'feminised' professions.

If we look at quantitative data, of the 789,400 women employed in the healthcare sector (74.2%), the highest percentage is between the ages of 30, 40 and 50. In physical pharmacies, 71.5% of the 47,194 pharmacists working are women.

But this is not the only very positive figure. The presence of women in management positions in this sector is significantly higher than in other companies. It is estimated that 41.3% of laboratory positions are held by women. In the IBEX-35, for example, this figure drops to 12.1%.

In terms of equality between men and women, the pharmaceutical industry can be proud of pay equality: the figures show that the difference between the average salaries of men and women is 10%, the lowest figure across all Spanish industrial sectors.

Some success stories

Maria Rio is currently general manager of Gilead Spain and since 2012 has been responsible for all operations of this pharmaceutical company in our country.

Concha Caudevilla has been general manager of Otsuka Pharmaceuticals in Spain since 2014, and was previously responsible for the Market Access department, also at this company. Among her achievements is that the company signed the CEO Statement of Support for the Women's Empowerment Principles, a set of principles focused on corporate actions to promote gender equality and the empowerment of women in the workplace, marketplace and community. Quite something, right?

Another pharmaceutical company led by a woman is GSK Farma Spain, with Cristina Henriquez de Luna at the helm as chair and chief executive officer. It is clear that in our sector we are lucky to have a very equal role for women compared with men. But we understand that this is not the case everywhere, which is why Farmaciasdirect defends and champions the role of women in the professional and personal sphere, which is so important for the moral evolution of the world. Women, you are unique. Happy day. May the desire to keep evolving never end.