Riccardo Palmisano

“As we all know, Biotechnologic innovative research was and still is the basis to fight the Covid pandemia: from virus sequencing and diagnostic molecular tests to revolutionary vaccines and therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, all available solutions are Biotech. This cannot be a surprise, as it is expected that 80% of the future healthcare products will biotech based, but just confirm the importance of Biotech for both public health and industrialized Countries future GDP. In this scenario Italy is well positioned to play a relevant role in the next years. The Italian biotech industry is in fact lively and rich in international recognized excellences through out the entire supply chain, which goes from laboratory to patient. Even in this troubled period in Italy we had one of the major player in the Covid diagnostic tests, we had at least three innovative companies participating in the development of new Covid vaccines and we have also seen a cutting edge oncology advanced therapies company going public at the Nasdaq Market, just to share some recent and relevant examples.Today we can be confident that the lessons learned during these two diffucult years will contribute to give new boost and unprecedent opportunities to our dynamic sector, caracterized by a large percentage of small and medium-sized companies (80%) and a strong entrepreneurial spirit. We are in fact confident that the learned lesson will on one side improve the public-private sectors collaboration, simplifying rules and bureaucracy, speeding up processes, and on the other side provide unprecedent financial resources form the EU Next Generation Plan, and the consequent PNRR. Italian Authorities are working together in order to seize the opportunity, focusing on both long term healthcare research and innovation strategic plans and administrative simplification, as requested by the European guidelines and expected by our private sector. These joint efforts will be able to catalyze the Italian several sthrenghts, starting from good basic and clinical research, to highly qualified human resources, low labor costs, good and various research and manufacturing infrastructures, a recognized leadership in orphan drugs and precision medicine sectors. We therefore believe EU Next Generation and PNRR’s funds represent a unique opportunity for the national Biotech sector to accelerate its growth and to strengthen its impact on competitiveness, economic growth and well-being of civil society. Our association is also suggesting some measures to more and more facilitate investments in our country. Italy is ready and open to any international cooperations, all along the journey of the Life Sciences, from research to clinical development as well as in bioproduction.”