NutraResearch: a story of innovation, great energy and entrepreneurship

NutraResearch will be 10 years old in 2021. This is a very important event and we want to take advantage of to go back to our beginnings and take a look back at our entire trajectory.

NutraProcés manufacturing plant located in Barberà del Vallès, and acquired by the NutraResearch group.

It was 2011 when Carlos Fernández (RIP) and Carlos Stampa, two senior executives from large firms in the pharmaceutical industry, despite having already achieved many career goals, continued with the same energy with which they had held a successful career in their respective areas. Fernández had been responsible for Formulation Development at Ferrer International and later founding partner of Masterfarm and MasterDiet; while Stampa was a partner at Laboratorios Genové. Mastering their usual motivation and wanting to continue challenged, they decided to start up, in the same premises of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat that Genové was located, a new formulation and development laboratory dedicated to solve formulation challenges for third party firms for both pharmaceutical products and also food supplements.

They knew extensively the sector and the new needs and requirements, so from the very beginning they thoughtabout the foundation of a very innovative company, with a great entrepreneurial spirit. They made a large investment in machinery and technology, a commitment that has always been a constant at NutraResearch ever since. So significantly that the broad technological capacity to create and produce high-quality products makes the great difference between NutraResearch and the rest of the players in the sector in Spain. The company’s trajectory has been characterized by the fact that both ofthe founders and the management of NutraResearch come from the pharmaceutical field, subject to great control and quality standards. That is why NutraResearch is measured by the same parameters of high rigor and reliability.

This is how innovation and a focus on R&D are part of the DNA of this ambitious project, which has not stopped growing since its foundation. A vital step was the commitment to go from being a family business to a professionalized generational replacement, with the incorporation of the current CEO, Gemma Casadevall, with a long career in US and also Spanish pharmaceutical companies. Casadevall, PhD in Pharmacy, PPD from IESE and trained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in pharmaceutical technology, as well as an associate professor at the University of Barcelona, ​​combines experience as a PhD in pharmacy and formulation developer with business management.

Gemma Casadevall, CEO of NutraResearch Group.

Casadevall has provided the company with a decisive strategic vision for its growth. An addition to this strategy is the recent acquisition of 100% of the shareholding of the production plant in Barberà del Vallès: NutraProcés, with whom it had a partnership agreement in the past. This aquisition allows NutraResearch to have all the necessary facilities to thoroughly fulfill the formulation process from its creation to industrial production and marketing for their partners.
Leading the R&D laboratories, there is also Dr. Albert Sala, with more than 30 years of experience in formulation, and a determining knowledge in botany, phytotherapy and formulation development.

Albert Sala, R&D director of the group.

Thanks to such professionalization, NutraReasearch can develop in parallel and with the utmost qualityformulations for around 50 different projects, each of which requires a formulation and development time of several months.

Faithful to its innovative nature, NutraResearch strategy plays on anticipation and proactivity, moving from just creating formulations solely on request to suggesting those solutions that will be successful in the market. The company’s Innovation Committee study and analyze all market needs that will always respond to market needs, in full understanding and partnership with their client firms. Thus, being able to have full capacity to keep up with the pace set by the food supplements sector, which is experiencing around  30% annual growth.