J&J’s Joana De Castro finds purpose in a world of possibilities

14 April 2025

Joana De Castro describes her home country of Panama in Central America as so idyllic, its citizens see little reason to leave, which is why her parents were surprised when their daughter said she wanted to make an impact on the world and study abroad.

Not having the financial means to do so, De Castro applied for and was offered a prestigious Fulbright scholarship to study industrial engineering at Cornell University in New York, later backed up by a scholarship from the Panama Government and opening the door not just to education, but a whole world of possibilities.

Selected not just for academic excellence, Fulbright Scholars must also demonstrate leadership potential, an ability to adapt to new cultural environments, innovative thinking, strong communication skills, and a desire to make a positive impact on society, so it is of little surprise that upon graduating, De Castro was looking for a position with purpose. It was not until a chance meeting while working with global pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson (J&J) that she found it.

“I studied industrial engineering because it teaches you to find structured solutions to problems and implement them efficiently,” she told MedNews in her first interview since arriving in Australia last year to take on the role of Managing Director of J&J’s Innovative Medicine business across Australia and New Zealand.

“After university, I went into consulting and worked for different industries, but I missed the fire. I returned to the US to do my master of engineering and MBA and it was there that J&J recruited me as part of their Global Talent Program.

“As part of the program, J&J looks for the best graduates from around the world but at the time, I knew nothing about the pharma world, so J&J took a big risk with me.

“Panama is a very safe place and my first international assignment with J&J was as a sales representative in Venezuela – a country with a different economic and political environment. To be honest, it was a bit rough for me personally as my family stayed in Panama, but professionally it was the best experience I could ask for.”

Accompanied by armed guards wherever she went, De Castro would sometimes wait hours to discuss a new biologic with physicians. It was during one such time that she had an encounter that cemented her knowledge that she had found her life’s purpose.

“I had only been in the role for two weeks and was visiting an infusion centre,” she recalls. “There was a woman of around 50 years old who had IBD (inflammatory bowel disorder) and was receiving treatment. She asked me who I worked for and I told her I was a sales representative for J&J.

“The medicine I was representing was the first biologic that treated the cause of conditions like IBD, not just symptoms, and it turned out this woman was on it. She told me how before starting her treatment, she couldn’t work or go out with her family because of IBD flares. She couldn’t live a normal life.

“Then she told me about her life now. She said, ‘You don’t realise the impact of what you’re doing. I can spend time with my kids. I can go to a restaurant. I can go to my kid’s graduation. That’s something I couldn’t do before’.

“At the end, she thanked me for the work I did. I didn’t deserve that thanks, but she was not thanking me – she was thanking J&J and the industry and the work they do to identify unmet medical needs like hers and invest in R&D to find solutions for patients. I was still very young at the time and thinking about going back to consulting or working in another sector but two weeks into my job, I had found my purpose at J&J and have never looked back.”

From LATAM to Sydney

De Castro says finding a job that allows her to provide for her family and positively impact the world is truly special, while it has also enabled the family to live abroad. After her first year in Venezuela, she returned to Panama where she worked her way up through a range of commercial and marketing roles before being appointed Strategic Marketing Director for Latin America.

In 2022, she was made Vice President for the Colombia, Peru and Ecuador cluster and in 2024 accepted her first assignment outside Latin America as Senior Vice President of Australia and New Zealand. Based in Sydney, De Castro and her family quickly adjusted to the Australian way of life, settling not far from Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach.

It’s a world away from Latin America but De Castro sees both similarities and differences in the markets she has worked in, and Australia is not always better.

“Our purpose in the pharma world is to bridge the gap between innovation and access to patients,” she explains. “Whether it is Latin America or Australia, the objective is the same. Colombia, Peru and Ecuador have different economic and political scenarios, but they all face challenges in terms of of access – probably different to Australia but I’m a true believer that working in the pharma industry, working alone doesn’t get you anywhere.

“We are stronger together so when we work with the government, when we work with patients, when we work with regulators, we need to come together to achieve equality in terms of health.

“J&J invests a big part of our of our bottom line in R&D, and that’s very important, but our job at a local level is translating that into access. Australia has a very strong health system and anyone in Australia can access different healthcare, whether it be through primary care or specialty care, and that is special, but I was surprised that some of the medications that are readily available in Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, and Latin America in general, were not available here.

“Australian patients have to travel abroad to get access to innovative medicines like some of the cell therapies and gene therapies, and the time to access in Latin America is sometimes shorter than Australia. Here, it takes on average 466 days after TGA approval for a medicine to be reimbursed. In the UK, it is 130 days. I think the data speaks for itself that Australians are waiting too long for innovative treatments.”

Australians missing out on innovation

De Castro says public budgets are restricted in all countries but the lack of real growth in the PBS budget is acting as an inhibitor to timely access for Australians.

“There’s no appetite to pay for innovation, and in the end we are a company that stands for innovation, that invests heavily in tackling unmet medical needs through innovation, but that innovation needs to be funded,” she says.

“One example is a backbone treatment considered standard of care in first-line multiple myeloma and funded in 38 countries, but not in Australia. We are working with the government to get that funded here and making positive strides, but it’s very late compared to other countries. If you looked at the long-term value of these therapies, then the decision-making would be different.”

Now 14 years working at J&J, De Castro is still passionate about being an agent of change, both in enabling others from diverse backgrounds to have a career in the sector and in securing access for patients with high unmet needs.

“We need to work harder than other industries and move with a sense of urgency because we’re in the business of saving lives,” she says. “In conversations we have with the government, we should always focus on patients and how we can collaborate to achieve better outcomes.

“As a leader, I have a clear purpose to leave a legacy of health equity in every country I serve, and this means thinking long term and making sure Australia is ready for the products we have today and those we will have in the future.

“J&J has been here for nearly 140 years and will be here for the next 140 years, which for me means staying focused on our target of delivering long-term health outcomes for patients.”

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