Innovation has always been one of the founding values of Biofarma Group, one of the guidelines that guide the activity and work of the people who contribute daily to achieving company objectives. The Group's vision is clear: to be the first to design a future where innovation is at the service of personalized and sustainable prevention. The importance and centrality attributed to the concept of innovation strongly emerge, to which Biofarma Group has decided to dedicate an entirely new team, thus starting a project of an internal reorganization of the R&D area, which until now still had a markedly territorial and site structure and has now become an organic and transversal function. This goal is of enormous importance because it breaks the logic of silos and leaves room for a mentality based on sharing methodologies and work tools, preferring teamwork to the value of the company and people.
Based on the new organization, the R&D function consists of two highly specialized strategic axes: a team dedicated to the Scientific and Innovation area and a team dedicated to the Development area, two teams composed of high-level professionals from a scientific and technical point of view. The Scientific and Innovation area represents binoculars focused on the future: from here, new ideas and projects supported by scientific and technological evidence arise, exploiting the Group's ability to anticipate market needs and to move in step with the times, remaining sensitive to the issues highlighted by the scientific community and in line with medical trends. On the other hand, the Development area translates customers' ideas into finished products capable of differentiating themselves in the competitive landscape and establishing themselves as market leaders through cutting-edge processes and technologies.
The ultimate goal of this new organizational approach is to make Biofarma Group an even more reliable partner, able to guide the customer in choosing the best possible product, sharing with him the technical-scientific know-how of the Group and becoming a reference point for potential trends and evolutions in the sector. In short, Biofarma Group puts knowledge at the service of customers.
Arianna Vanelli, R&D Scientific and Innovation Manager of Biofarma group, also thinks:
"The creation of this team is the first sign of a major corporate change focused on innovation. As a leading international group in our sector, we are responsible for the company, our customers, and the final consumer to concentrate our efforts on continuously searching for new technological and scientific opportunities. This distinctive aspect will allow us to be constantly updated on emerging global trends to provide our customers with the best solutions for their needs."
The pillars of this innovative approach are 4: Networking, Open Innovation, Sustainable Science and Future Technologies.
Biofarma Group believes constant comparison is essential for continuous growth. To date, the Group boasts a vast and consolidated network of collaborations with national and international Key Opinion Leaders, with whom to share and discuss possible future scientific and technological trends. It is a network composed of more than 30 leading exponents of the medical-scientific community in different areas such as gynaecology, cardiometabolic, gastroenterology, orthopaedics, immunology, neurology, geriatrics, pharmacology, urology and andrology. The Group also actively collaborates with start-ups with scientific-technological potential and uniqueness, Universities, Hospitals and, for the part of preclinical tests, facilities with experience in the nutraceutical, cosmetic and MDR fields. Collaborations occur through recurring meetings and brainstorming on innovation topics of strategic interest to the Group. These represent an essential source of inspiration and a starting point for defining work and corporate objectives.
In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that networks of innovators represent the main driver of economic development and scientific-technological progress. If, in the past, the innovation process took place within companies and inventions were jealously guarded by protection mechanisms such as patents and industrial secrets, today, there is no more extended room for the solitary inventor, and the tendency is to open up to the outside. The new innovation models, therefore, prefer collaborative aspects that allow the creation of relationships with external and internal subjects of the company in a defined approach of open innovation. Based on these principles, Biofarma Group establishes its ability to innovate.
Being socially responsible is an indispensable daily principle for Biofarma Group, which is committed to adopting virtuous behaviour outside and inside the company boundaries.
Precisely for this reason, the approach to innovation supported by the Group aims to achieve new objectives in terms of excellence while always keeping an eye on sustainability, be it environmental, social or economic.
Creating knowledge and understanding through science makes it possible to solve today's complex economic, social and environmental challenges, achieve sustainable development and contribute to a greener society.
The Group's goal is to guide a process of finding sustainable solutions through open collaboration with people, suppliers, academics, and internal and external experts, an approach that can be summed up in two words: open innovability.
The ability to innovate is synonymous with new technologies. For this reason, Biofarma group has always cared to integrate the latest generation tools into production and development processes capable of implementing efficiency, safety and quality, from the use of artificial intelligence for data processing to the use of predictive studies and in silico technology for the design of clinical trials, from the use of technologies for product customization, up to the exploitation of the advantages of nanoemulsions in the cosmetic and nutraceutical fields.
To keep up with the latest news and technological trends, trade fairs are fundamental, which for Biofarma Group, represents a significant opportunity to scout for new technologies or technologies known but with new applications. Moreover, contamination is also essential in this area: Biofarma Group follows the evolution of other sectors to take inspiration from it, as in the case of the pharmaceutical world, whose development can often give predictive anticipations of how the nutraceutical sector could evolve.
Open innovation, therefore, guides the team at 360 degrees in the design and implementation of innovative products, including the exploration and choice of technologies that allow them to improve, innovate and support the development of these products.
This approach to innovation adopted by the Biofarma group takes the form of a customer service strongly oriented towards product positioning and creating customized solutions based on customer needs and with different levels of innovation.
The services that Biofarma Group offers can be summarized in the following categories:
bronze level, which consists in the design of new products with innovative raw materials (e.g. Novel food and therefore not yet or little present on the market, raw materials selected for the quality of the supporting scientific studies) and the development of scientific rationales to support the positioning and concept behind the product;
silver level, consists of the design of new products supported by scientific dossiers and basic, preclinical studies;
gold level, which includes the design of new products supported by scientific dossiers, advanced preclinical studies, proof of concept or clinical trials;
platinum level, consists of creating new products backed by a pharma-like management and development process for Big Pharma.
Thanks to the collaboration with several key opinion leaders, the Scientific and Innovation team deals with developing innovative tailor-made products that meet the final consumer's needs. Thanks to the knowledge of these experts, it creates products with a pharma-like approach oriented to the prevention of diseases or valuable as adjuvants to pharmacological therapies prescribed by the doctor.
In addition, it supports customers in organizing pre-clinical and clinical studies for their projects and deals with externally commissioning in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical studies to be performed on the Group's products. These studies are necessary to enhance and clarify the mechanism of action of products, demonstrating their efficacy and safety. In addition, they are sometimes required to research possible synergistic effects of different substances.
In particular, the team relies on national and international CROs for the development of clinical studies on supplements and DMs, starting from a proof of concept up to more substantial studies, also actively collaborating with the facilities during all phases, from the drafting of the study protocol to the publication of the article.
To develop a product with a scientific basis, we start with a search in the literature for substances that can act on the chosen target. Once the formula has been identified theoretically, the Development group that realizes it intervenes. At this point, to verify what is reported in the literature, pre-clinical studies are performed, and, in some cases, if these give the desired results, we move on to human research.
The R&I department also deals with transitioning from MDD to MDR of the Group and customers, collaborating with external facilities and consultants for biological and safety assessments and ensuring that devices are sufficiently characterized to comply with the new regulation.
Finally, the team scientifically supports R&D colleagues on the choice of active ingredients for formulations with specific therapeutic targets, as well as drawing up rationales and technical-scientific dossiers for the Group's and customers' products, complete with bibliographic evidence to support the selected active ingredients and indications on their efficacy dosages and chosen technologies.
