Founder and CEO. A serial entrepreneur in healthcare.
The story of Merqurio is, in large part, his own. Salvatore Ruggiero started his first business at eighteen, as director of a software house — what today we would call a startup — dedicated to pharmacy management. From there came the intuition of a protocol invented forty years ago for modem communication between pharmacy and wholesaler, connecting different systems by transmitting orders and availability in real time. From that moment on, the goal has always been to bring innovation to the sector, even at the cost of going against the grain.
From that technological and editorial root Merqurio was born, and with it some innovations that changed scientific information in Italy: the drug database, the sector's reference publishing, and above all the figure of the Informatore Remoto® — scientific information by phone and web, "first misunderstood, then opposed, finally imitated", which became a national and international benchmark.
Ruggiero is also the author of Rimodellare il marketing farmaceutico, the reflection project — born as a series of articles — on the continuous transformation of pharmaceutical marketing. In 2025 this reflection took full shape in the book Marketing farmaceutico. Dai modelli tradizionali all'omnichannel (EGEA, Reference series), a handbook of over 400 pages that fills a gap in the Italian landscape: an up-to-date reference for continuing, academic and professional training in pharmaceutical marketing. The book runs through several sections — the sector's landscape and reference regulations, the specific features of the market and its evolution, and strategies from a multichannel perspective — with a declaredly patient-centric approach. It has become a reference text for those who study and work in pharmaceutical marketing in Italy.