Drugs, Dompé invests one billion in innovation over the three-year period 2026-2028

"We have won a voucher from the US Food and drug administration to reduce the regulatory assessment time from 10-12 months to 1-2 months, for one of the most innovative researches for the intranasal formulation of cenegermin-bkbj in Naion, non-arteritic anterior ischaemic optic neuropathy, a condition with no approved therapies". When you talk about scientific discoveries with Sergio Dompé, founder and president of the pharmaceutical company of the same name, it opens up discussions that seem destined to go on and on. This is a bit like what happens with innovation, on which Dompé farmaceutici 'will invest about one billion euros in the next three years (2026, 2027, 2028), both on the production side and in research,' says the entrepreneur, 'most of it between Italia and the United States. In 2025 we invested 400 million and this year we will increase the budget by 100 million. In 2026 the investment in research will grow by more than 50 per cent for clinical trials'.

Sergio Dompé

Between 2025 and 2026, 11 clinical trials have been launched, 8 in 2025 and 3 in 2026. The company is betting heavily 'on the protein that gave Rita Levi Montalcini the Nobel Prize together with Stanley Cohen, NGF, Nerve growth factor, convinced that its full potential has not yet been explored,' Dompé continues. Innovation is there when there is research and those in innovation are the best investments, both when they are successful and when they are not. The history of research is never a story of successes alone, but of failures: it is the obstinacy to search and research in the meanders of experimentation that makes it possible to arrive at the confirmed thesis and the drug'.

At the moment, the group is focused on research in the ophthalmological, neurological and pain treatment fields. In the former case, in addition to Naion, they are researching atopic keratoconjunctivitis, persistent corneal epithelial defect and ocular transplantation disease against the host, then in the neurological field on infantile cerebral palsy and neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, and in the field of pain treatment on chronic pain and osteoarthritis.

Revenues in 2025 exceeded EUR 1.7 billion, up by almost EUR 500 million from EUR 1.234 billion in 2024. There are 1,100 employees of which 56% are women and of these 46% in the leadership bracket. "Let's not forget that the pharmaceutical sector is subject to so many stresses. There are new patents, expiring patents, but also innovations that are successful and others that are not, and in any case a company does not have the value of the project until it has the authorisation licence,' explains Dompé. 'It is a complex world, but ours is a trend of definite growth. We are proud to be a piece of that 'made in Italy' which is now being declined more familiarly than in the past and where there are so many interlocutors who in the last 30 years have been able to bring our country back to a leading role, which is demonstrated by export figures. On average, the pharmaceutical sector exports 75% of its production, almost 70 billion euro, we are at over 86%, an increase of 46% over the previous year'. However, adds the entrepreneur, 'we pay taxes in Italia and our 2025 budget, fully consolidated in our country, recorded taxes of over 393 million euro, almost double the turnover generated in Italia. That is also why we ask for a lot of attention. Five minutes after the end of the pandemic, when everyone said how strategic it was to have pharmaceutical production in Italia and be autonomous, they all forgot. In the last 15 years we have experienced an overall backwardness in Europe. While China and the United States continue to do their part and run, we have lost 20-25% of competitiveness, a share that would be far greater if there were no pharmaceuticals. The European institutions must take up the document of Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta: it is not just a wish list but a total requirement that requires immediate time. The time factor has become supercritical, we have documents such as Mario Draghi's that have either not been considered or the real follow-up is languishing. The risk is that companies that are very competitive will prefer to make investments in other countries, something I try to avoid with all my might because I have a very strong sense of belonging to Italia: we will continue to invest in the country but we need more attention to the sector'.

To translate words into deeds with an example, on the industrial front the Dompé production site in L'Aquila has expanded its operational capacity with a new line dedicated to syrups and oral liquids, bringing the site's operational lines to nine. The plant integrates a high-capacity filling system, with over 10 thousand bottles per hour, with state-of-the-art control systems.