In the seventies, after a short experience at Lederle Labs, he was appointed Resident Area Manager Middle East at Farmitalia. Later he moved to Japan as Assistant to the Managing Director of Nippon Farmitalia. After his return to Farmitalia's Milan headquarters, Dr. Pilato was for several years in charge of marketing for the anti-cancer drugs Adriamycine and Daunomycine.

In the early eighties, after a short experience at Recordati, Dr. Pilato joined the Serono Group as Vice President Business Development and participated in the group's pioneering activity in the biotech field. He established business collaborations with many research institutions, including the Salk Institute (USA), Celltech (UK), Monash University (Australia), Yeda (Israel), and with the world's most important research-based pharmaceutical companies. At Serono, Dr. Pilato helped to reshape a product portfolio that today comprises mostly r-DNA products. In 1986, he was appointed Executive Vice President of International Business Operations for the group. In this capacity, he established several pharmaceutical operations around the world, based for various periods in Tokyo, Boston, Toronto and Geneva. He returned to Italy in 1994 as Managing Director of Serono SpA.

Dr. Pilato left the Serono Group in 1995 to join Menarini Pharmaceutical Group as a Member of the Board of Directors of Malesci. Dr. Pilato joined in 1997 the Bracco Group of pharmaceutical companies as Vice President at Bracco S.p.A. He also served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bracco Diagnostics Inc. in Princeton, New Jersey (USA). Dr. Pilato was also a Director at Bracco Research USA Inc. and at the Joint Venture Bracco-Eisai being also responsible for the Bracco Group's business operations in Japan.

Dr. Pilato established Bio3 Research in 2001.