The increasingly close link between the public and private research has brought unprecedented benefits to patients. For Dompé farmaceutici, collaboration with the public research system has become a fundamental pillar in creating a new healthcare system. But how do these two very different worlds come together? Thanks to researchers, the two ways of doing research become interconnected. An example is the working career of Pier Giorgio Amendola, a graduate in Applied Biology for Biomedical research and today Associate Director of the Discovery Biology team at Dompé.

"I am happy to have returned to Italy to bring back to my country the skills and knowledge acquired abroad during a long period that lasted almost 12 years, in which I faced different projects that made me grow," he explains. "I have to say that the real added value in having different experiences is learning to adapt quickly to new contexts, perhaps very different from your past." As part of his Ph.D. and postdoctoral experience, Amendola spent seven years at the Biotech Research & Innovation Centre (BRIC) at the University of Copenhagen. Then he moved to Barcelona to work for Ona Therapeutics; a startup focused on oncology treatments. Finally, he returned to Italy in Naples at Dompé, one of Europe's centers of research excellence. "Two years after starting my activity at Dompé, I am involved in more than 20 different research projects, and I coordinate several teams. I am convinced that in pharmaceutical research, the achievement of challenging goals requires both high laboratory skills and adequate networking capabilities at the national and international level."

Dompé's Discovery Biology division focuses on three main areas: the study of neurotrophins, the biological processes of NETosis, and the identification of new targets to be addressed in the pharmacological field to expand the treatment processes already in place. "I feel truly close to patients seeking answers," Amendola adds. "In the past, I have often found myself focusing on one area of research, with all the risks and frustration that can come with it. Now I have an immediate sense of how much what I do can make a difference and create value while also aiming at multiple goals simultaneously."

Now, Amendola says, he feels more of a protagonist in his day-to-day work than in the past. "There are differences between the academic field and the industrial one," he explains. "In the first one, research often lacks the necessary continuity. Only through scientific publications is it possible for the researcher to make his achievements known and progress in his academic career. It is also difficult to associate one's studies with an immediate benefit to society in that context. On the other hand, in the corporate environment, the greater funding, the more suitable instrumentation, and the wider working context allow obtaining robust results, more quickly and with a possible direct impact on society and the lives of patients".

University research and the pharmaceutical industry, two worlds that were so distant in the past, are, in fact, gradually drawing closer together since examples of collaboration between industry and academia are becoming more and more frequent. Even Dompé, for instance, finances doctorates and research activities in universities to promote advances in specific sectors.

In conclusion, "it is not correct to think that real scientific research can be done only in the university environment and that the work in industry is conditioned exclusively by profit," Amendola concludes.