The importance of
Memory

On 1 July 1927, a small company trading in pharmaceuticals set up an office in Piazzale Susa in Milan. A few weeks earlier, Elio Bracco had signed a notary deed incorporating the company bearing his name, the company that is now the Bracco Group. The family business, which has never stopped growing since then, is now an established global leader in diagnostic imaging, an advanced medical technology that underpins a whole area of treatment vital for human health. The success of the Bracco Group is also ascribable to the far-sighted vision of the founder’s son, Fulvio, who joined his father’s firm immediately after graduating from Pavia University. In the 1950s, Fulvio focused his research activity on the chemistry of iodine and its use in diagnostic imaging, then a niche area of interest, which he developed into an industry that Bracco has been revolutionizing ever since.

Fulvio was a true captain of industry, one of those dynamic business leaders who rebuilt the economic and civil fabric of the country from the rubble of the Second World War and spearheaded Italy’s drive toward modernity and prosperity. He belongs to a generation of strong, visionary, and resolute men. He did not let himself be disheartened by the lack of practically everything after the war. Instead, in 1949 he set up a new factory in the Lambrate district of Milan and staked its future success on research and innovation. 

Research was Fulvio’s “obsession,” and forms an article of faith in the business creed that he passed down to his daughter, Diana.

Iopamidol, produced in 1981 as the result of research by the legendary Professor Ernst Felder, proved to be a revolutionary molecule to which Bracco owes much of its fortune. The 1980s-2000s were the years of the Group’s internationalization during which it carved out a space for itself on world markets with cutting-edge products for all types of diagnostic imaging: x-rays, magnetic resonance, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine.

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