Everything started in 1981 in Funo, a town of five thousand inhabitants
in the Bologna province. But the story of Espansione Group is that of a global
medtech leader in the fields of ophthalmology and dermatology. A new generation
of entrepreneurs arrived only a few years ago. For FARE INSIEME, Giampaolo
Colletti interviewed Alessandro Fier, Luca Trimigno and Matteo Corbellino
by Giampaolo Colletti
@gpcolletti
Photocredit: Giacomo Maestri e Francesca Aufiero
Interior, night-time. In a well-known restaurant in Emilia, at a table that is now almost clear, someone takes out a sheet of paper with a business plan. In that document there is an idea, brave and visionary at the same time. An idea that feels like the future. An idea that feels like research, progress, innovation. An idea that combines human and technological capital. And here it is: re-establish an outstanding company and aim even higher. After all, the story we are about to tell you features a generational turnover, as well as something else. In that Emilian restaurant, that evening, three young managers decided to place their bets on a most precious thing: teamwork. Thus they went from extremely successful multinationals with excellent careers to a new business that felt like a challenge. This is the story of Espansione Group, a company set up in 1981 and specializing in technologies for the treatment of serious eye diseases including macular degeneration linked with age, which is considered the main cause of blindness and that might affect over 280 million people by 2040. «When you’re an entrepreneur, you are always ready take a leap in the dark. For us, embarking on this adventure was an important decisive passage. We took a company that was made up of passionate skilled people with a great knowledge of processes. A company with a strong imprint transmitted by the founder, ready to introduce new resources and skills,” explains Alessandro Fier, CEO and President of Espansione Group. Managing the company with him, we also have Luca Trimigno as Chief Strategy & Corporate Development Officer and Matteo Corbellino as Chief Marketing & Innovation Officer. Fier, Trimigno and Corbellino - all around 30 and educated at the Bocconi University with experience abroad - also feature in the annual Forbes list of managers under 30 who are favouring change in the country with their ideas.
Company profile. Helping people through science. That is the mantra of this Bologna company which has scaled the global markets over time. You can go anywhere from Emilia. Everything started in Funo, a town of five thousand people in the Argelato municipality in the Bologna metropolitan area. From there, they reached the US, which represents almost half of the foreign sales for the ophthalmology sector. Then Europe with Germany, France and Spain and finally Asia, which is growing rapidly. The turnover has tripled in three years from €3 million to €9 million, with exports accounting for 85%. Over the years, the company has evolved from the distribution of medical devices to the development of tools employing various frequencies of modulated light and pulsed light, and grew to become a global medtech company in the ophthalmology and dermatology sectors. “We want to establish new paradigms, driven by our desire to provide our partners and their patients the best certified medical technologies,” states Luca Trimigno. Becoming leaders in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the ocular surface. And science is the guiding star. It is not by chance that we are standing in front of the only company that has been able to develop, patent and certify a photobiomodulation technology for medical use from the idea that was developed by NASA in the 1980s. “We did all this believing in the challenge of the status quo, innovating with care and ingenuity and believing in the power of our people. Every day, we invest heavily in the research and development of technologies and solutions within the Espansione ecosystem. The success of our technologies and solution has set a global market standard,” adds Matteo Corbellino. Innovation and research are also to be found in the figures: 6 technological patents, 50 countries reached worldwide and over 1500 solutions installed for over half a million annual treatments, everything supported by over 40 scientific publications, a growing figure, on proprietary technology. Then there is a central element in the company positioning. A concept that today is contemporary and visionary, i.e. that of coopetition. It is actually an expansion of the markets to the advantage of all, based on shared cooperation, even with competitors. Because, when it comes to health, you can only win by thinking with a plural logic.
https://podcast.confindustriaemilia.it/
Read the other interviews
