With Fondazione Carlo Erba in a conference for the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Italian Unification, the Fondazione Carlo Erba organised a conference to recall the experiences of Carlo Erba (1811-1888), Giovanni Battista Schiapparelli (1795-1863) and Roberto Giorgio Lepetit (1842-1907): three formidable entrepreneurs/researchers who in the years of the Risorgimento, between walls and civil strife, laid the foundations for the Italian pharmaceutical and chemical industries.

The convention highlighted the spirit that drove these personalities: Carlo Erba who as a pharmaceutical scientist studied in depth the therapeutic use of cannabis, inaugurated the first factory of his company in Milan in 1837 and played a part in the foundation of the Politecnico and the Società Elettrica Edison. Giovanni Battista Schiapparelli “emigrated” from his native Piedmont to work first in Rome and then in Naples, but returned to Piedmont to take part in the upheavals in 1821.

Roberto Giorgio Lepetit, who came to Italy from France and originated dyei chemistry in Garessio, worse still today there is a factory of the Sanofi group.