OPELLA
Before May 2025, mentioning Opella to most people might well have drawn a blank expression. This is because the company was previously the Consumer Healthcare( CHC) division of the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi.
Following its spin-out from Sanofi in spring 2025, Opella had to continue fast-tracking its transition from a single cog within a vast, established pharmaceutical enterprise towards a fledgling fast-moving consumer healthcare( FMCH) model.
For Lyvio, that transformation has created an environment in which agility, speed and innovative ways of working are paramount to success. His own route into procurement was far from linear.
“We’ re not deploying AI for the sake of deploying AI. We’ re deploying AI where it’ s meaningful to do it”
Lyvio Frimat Global Head of Procurement Centre of Excellence, Strategy & Transformation Opella
After completing a Master’ s in Negotiation and Marketing as well as double MBA qualifications, and initially spending time in marketing and entrepreneurship, Lyvio was approached by Communisis to help develop its P & G Prestige account.
“ This was really my initial foot into the procurement world, even though I had touched upon it before,” he says.“ And since then, I just never left.”
What has kept him there is precisely what first attracted him to the function: its ability to connect the different parts of a business.
“ For me, that’ s a beautiful place to be if you want to understand the full dynamic of a business,” he says.
A radical reset for procurement An ambitious vision and mission guide Opella’ s operations. Opella is, says Lyvio, the number one pure player in over-the-counter vitamins, minerals and supplements and the third-largest global consumer healthcare company. Its vision is to become the“ best FMCH company in and for the world”, while its mission is to place“ health in the hands of every consumer.”
Matching that ambition, Lyvio has embarked on a radical reset of the company’ s core procurement function.
Two forces are driving the transformation, he says: the move“ from pharma to FMCH”, and the fact that Opella is now a“ different company” that is“ structured differently” and“ needs to be more agile.”
6 opella. com