The Man Who Sold Italy Its Medicines: Inside Poggiolini's Hidden Fortune

Healthcare Mysteries Uncovered · Sep 18, 2026 · 22m

The Man Who Sold Italy Its Medicines: Inside Poggiolini's Hidden Fortune

Corruption hid in plain sight: a man who decided which drugs Italy would buy amassed at least 15 billion lire in a Swiss account and enough gold, jewels and rare coins to fill an apartment - all discovered in a 12‑hour search. How did a physician‑bureaucrat turn pharmaceutical approvals into a hidden personal fortune, and who paid the unseen price?

In this episode, we tell the chronology of Duilio Poggiolini’s rise from a medical graduate in 1954 to the heart of Italy’s drug approval system, the mechanisms of his…