Europe is leading the biotech revolution, says Dompé Farmaceutici CEO

Personalised medicine is the new paradigm of R&D, says Dompé CEO, with Europe and biotechnology at the forefront

Transcript

Eugenio Aringhieri, CEO of biotech firm Dompé Farmaceutici, discusses the new ‘personalised medicine’ landscape of healthcare, and explains how Europe’s 2,000 biotechnology firms are at the forefront of research and development.

European CEO: The biotech sphere is expanding in Europe. Here to tell us about some of the recent innovations is Eugenio Aringhieri.

Well Eugenio, if we might start with the key trends in the continental biotech industry; talk me through them.

Eugenio Aringhieri: Let me say that in biotech there is a great revolution in progress. And biotechnology has taken up the challenge of providing answers to the open questions in health.

We’re in a completely different landscape compared to the past: from a broad horizon, to personalised medicine; the right drug for individual patients. And in this new paradigm of R&D, biotechnology is for sure at the forefront.

And Europe is playing a leading role in this biotech revolution, with more than 2,000 companies involved, more than 50,000 employees, professionals, working in these companies. And also with a huge level of investment: more than €2bn invested annually in R&D.

European CEO: And the corresponding challenges with these trends?

Eugenio Aringhieri: Of course there are a lot of challenges. But I don’t hesitate to say that biotechnology has changed the neutraliser of a lot of diseases from the beginning.

Since 1982, with the first drug on the market, insulin, a true revolution for the treatment of diabetes: many millions of patients changed their lives. From that, to the latest discovery in 2014 in biotech, with a new drug against Hepatitis C.

Today there are 250m patients treated all over the world with biotech drugs. And more than 50 percent of the products in development are biotech. That means in 10 years from now we will arrive with a lot of new solutions for patients’ problems.

European CEO: Now how much of a role has innovation played in the industry’s expansion?

Eugenio Aringhieri: A huge role. Innovation, productivity and growth and three elements of the same virtuous circle that created competitive advantages. And the companies that connected competitiveness with their ability to innovate reacted better to the crisis, and came back in the shortest time.

And also, these companies approached innovation in a very different way. They created open innovation. That means they put together and shared their distinctive skills, and they created and built up a very innovative network all over the world.

In that way, they created a sort of a synergistic approach between different competencies, and overcame in this way the complexity of the challenge.

European CEO: And how does Dompé fit into this larger growth story?

Eugenio Aringhieri: After 75 years of successful history in primary care, we approached the new normal world in a different way, following three words: focus, network, and geographic expansion.

Focus means, dedicating our efforts on real diseases. Networking means setting up a global network of excellence among the different stakeholders, in order to guarantee a good level of synergistic approach between the different stakeholders.

That’s the reason why we can say that we completely changed the face of the company, from a local, commercially-driven company, to a global, R&D-driven one.

European CEO: How would you say you raise awareness for some of the diseases you treat?

Eugenio Aringhieri: Awareness plays an important role in the dialogue between different stakeholders. As big a role in the sector as the rare diseases are. And it’s important to work together with the different stakeholders in order to decide which would be the right route to develop the drug.

And this has been our experience in this sector. For instance, with the NGF, the nerve growth factor in new drugs developed for neurotrophic keratitis, a very rare disease of the front of the eye. In this sector we started an early dialogue with the regulatory agency from one side and from the other. We set up a network of excellence among the different partners who really specialised in this sector, in order to guarantee the best approach to developing the drug.

However, it’s really important to get the voices that are passionate in this field. And that’s the reason we decided to launch a video, ‘The Rarest Ones,’ during the World Rare Diseases Day. And it has had a very huge impact at an international level. And I hope that we can help the raising of awareness around this topic.

European CEO: Finally, what’s next for Dompé?

Eugenio Aringhieri: For sure the next three years will be a really challenging, crucial time for Dompe, because we are in the latest stage of several different projects, in different therapeutic areas. And all those have a high medical need. And we feel the expectation of thousands of patients all over the world. And of course we want to guarantee a positive break for them. And that principle guides our daily commitment.