Last December, Germany – like many other countries around the world – began a massive campaign of vaccinations against Covid-19. Part of Menarini Group since 1992, BERLIN-CHEMIE wanted to make its own contribution in creating an “assembly line” to get the vaccination off the ground, involving as many employees as possible to take part in the initiative as volunteers.

«As a historic Berlin company, we wanted to play a part in a project which is so special for our city, giving it our all as citizens of Berlin – said Christian Matschke, Executive Board Member for TechOps at BERLIN-CHEMIE and the project leader – The volunteers had all the technical skills necessary to deal with biologically sensitive substances like vaccines, so when the Senate of Berlin asked for our help with this project, we jumped at the chance to give it».

The German subsidiary gave employees with pharmaceutical skills the option of volunteering during working hours to help the medical staff prepare vaccine vials before its administration. 150 employees of BERLIN-CHEMIE joined the proposal, organising themselves into shifts of five days per week and helping to prepare an incredible 85,000 doses in the vaccination center Arena Berlin located in the district of Treptow-Köpenick, one of the largest vaccine centers in the city. Here, over 5,000 doses of the vaccine are administered per day. Every stage of the volunteers’ work was monitored with double-checking and the BERLIN-CHEMIE quality assurance system.

In addition to the strong social commitment, the German subsidiary shows a great innovative spirit. The news comes also from the communication front, with a fresh and original initiative: EinBlick, the podcast by BERLIN-CHEMIE.

The new and approx. 10 minutes long health policy podcast has been made available free of charge every Friday at around 12 noon since September 2020. It expands the range of information offered by BERLIN-CHEMIE and is an ideal companion to the EinBlick newsletter, which likewise addresses health policy topics and is published every three weeks. The podcast presents information and trends from healthcare policy, the pharmaceutical policy environment and the field of digital health in a compact and entertaining way. It is aimed at experts and anyone interested in current healthcare policy developments.

«The positive feedback we receive confirms our service and spurs on the editorial team, which plans and implements the topics week after week», reports Susanne Eble, Head of Healthcare Management and initiator of the EinBlick podcast.  According to surveys, around 14 million users in Germany regularly listen to podcasts: One in three of them is under 30 years old, but the number of fifty-year-olds who are taking to the format is also rising steadily. «Due to this development and the advantages in terms of access and reach of the medium, we are currently planning to add an interview podcast in which well-known experts will answer our questions», says Susanne Eble.

With its altruism in providing aid for the vaccination campaign and the distribution of content on innovative communication channels, BERLIN-CHEMIE – an important hub and the largest production site of Menarini Group – demonstrates concretely to work at the service of citizens, giving further proof of one’s own all-round social commitment in response to the community needs.