In 1897, Marcel Mérieux created Institut Mérieux: it was the beginning of an extraordinary entrepreneurial adventure that would profoundly influence vaccinology and then in vitro diagnostics industry worldwide.
To celebrate the 150th anniversary of Marcel Mérieux’s birth, 3 videos have been produced around key themes of his life, which find a particular resonance today around the 3 following themes : #zoonoses , #Pandemics, #ScientificSpirit
Lyon, September 17, 2020 – Institut Mérieux, a family holding company dedicated to global public health, is bolstering its management team to take on the challenges of a particularly complex global health context, which faces growing needs and an acceleration in scientific and technological breakthroughs.
▪ On October 1, 2020, Philippe Sans will be named Executive Vice-President — Strategy and Planning at Institut Mérieux.
▪ On January 1, 2021, Philippe Archinard will join Institut Mérieux as Executive Vice-President — Technological Innovation and Scientific Partnerships.
Philippe Archinard and Philippe Sans will bolster Institut Mérieux’s management team alongside Michel Baguenault, CEO.
Lyon, Tuesday October 8, 2019 – An Antonov airplane hired specially by the Mérieux Foundation will take off from the Lyon-Saint Exupery airport (France) on Wednesday October 9. Three container laboratories have been loaded onto the aircraft to bolster efforts to control the Ebola virus disease epidemic. Their final destination is Goma, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
On Wednesday June 5th under the dome of the Institut de France, the 2019 Christophe Mérieux Prize was awarded by Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux to Maryline Bonnet. The pulmonologist and research director in Uganda was awarded for her tuberculosis research program in developing countries.
More information on : https://www.fondation-merieux.org/
Lyon, December 18, 2018 – Alain Mérieux received the Reform Friendship Award at a conference celebrating the 40th anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening Up on December 18, 2018. The event took place at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, in the presence of President Xi Jinping.
Its product brands have also been aligned and federated under the bioMérieux brand, so as to make the product offering clearer and more recognizable for the customers.
For more than 50 years, bioMérieux has been working to advance public health through in vitro diagnostics.
This change reflects a strong brand positioning that supports the Company’s strategy, mainly focused on the diagnosis of infectious diseases.
The new identity remains true to bioMérieux’s history. It marks the Company’s determination to move forward and to continue to support its customers, in responding to today’s increasingly complex healthcare challenges.
The Board of Directors of bioMérieux met on December 15, 2017, at Marcy l’Étoile (France), and approved the appointment of Alexandre Mérieux as Chairman and CEO of the Company, taking effect immediately.
A special issue of Institut Mérieux Newsletter is dedicated to this anniversary. It looks back over 50 years of Mérieux Foundation action against infectious diseases in developing countries.
“…the investments we need to make now to improve developing country surveillance and diagnostic capacity will make or break the world’s response to the next big outbreak….”
Discover the op-ed of Alain Mérieux in The Hill
http://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/352651-we-have-to-start-preparing-for-the-next-deadly-epidemic
Created in 1967 by Dr. Charles Mérieux, the Mérieux Foundation is celebrating 50 years of fighting against infectious diseases.
The ever-present infectious threat kills more than 17 million people each year, mainly children in developing countries. The Foundation has taken a unique approach to this fight: since medicine is blind without diagnostics, the Mérieux Foundation has put diagnostics at the center of our work with the most disadvantaged populations. As a result, the Foundation has helped strengthen clinical biology capabilities in developing countries over the past 50 years.
Watch Hedwige Chevrillon’s exclusive interview with Alain Mérieux, President of the Mérieux Foundation. He appeared on BFM Business to talk about the Mérieux Foundation’s 50th anniversary.
As part of its anniversary celebrations, the Mérieux Foundation is hosting an International Meeting at Les Pensières Conference Center, located on Lake Annecy. The goal of this event is to highlight new modes of international collaboration in the fight against increasing epidemic risks. According to Alain Mérieux, “France must reassert itself on the world stage, and to do so must better coordinate the country’s social and economic players. Additional resources are necessary of course. But above all, we need all public and private stakeholders in France to develop a shared long-term vision and a determination to fight. This coordination is essential if we are to effectively work with other international partners to advance global health.”
The Group’s Rules of Conduct are now available on our website. Please click here.
These rules are the basis that each of the companies of Institut Mérieux must respect and develop into specific Ethics and Compliance programs.
The “A century of public health” movie, which was unveiled during the inauguration of the Campus de l’Étoile (the most recent among bioMérieux’s buildings), is now available on our website under the “Pasteurian Tradition” tab.
The film retraces the Mérieux family’s long-standing commitment to global public health. Starting with the company’s roots in Marcy l’Étoile, it takes viewers on a journey through the years, from Marcel Mérieux’s initial research in Lyon in 1897, all the way to the international growth of the companies that make up Institut Mérieux today.
The latest issue of Institut Mérieux’s Newsletter is now available on our website. Please click here.
Institut Mérieux’s Newsletter provides all the latest news about the Institute and its companies.
This issue presents some of the major projects of the Institute’s companies plus a special feature on the Foundation’s actions in the Middle East.
Marc Bonneville, Vice President of Medical and Scientific Affairs at Institut Mérieux will be taking over as Chairman of the Alliance for Research and Innovation in the Healthcare Industries (ARIIS). The purpose of this professional organisation affiliated to the French Health Industry Federation (FEFIS) is to break down barriers in private research and promote synergy between drugs, medical technology and diagnostics in both human and veterinary medicine. The ARIIS intends to create an environment which is conducive to innovation in cross-disciplinary health sectors such as digital health, decentralized diagnostics and the One Health concept which encompasses areas such as nutrition and antibiotic resistance.
Marc Bonneville originally trained as a veterinarian. He joined Institut Mérieux in 2013. A specialist in immunology, cancer and infectious diseases, he was formerly director of the LabEx ImmunoGraftOncology, Director of the Pays de Loire branch of the French blood bank, Director of the Nantes/Angers INSERM Cancer Research Center and head of research at the CNRS. He has authored numerous scientific publications and holds collective responsibilities in national and international research.
A keen advocate of biology without borders, Institut Mérieux is committed to supporting research in emerging countries. Every year, the Young Investigators Awards reward young and promising researchers and investigators in emerging and developing countries. Last summer, three prices have been awarded.
September 2016
Abdoul Salam Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso)
Abdoul Salam Ouedraogo is a pharmacist-biologist with a PhD from the University of Montpellier. He is currently an Assistant Professor and Head of the Bacteriology-Virology laboratory at the University Hospital in Bobo Dioulasso.
He has contributed to several studies on the prevalence of meningococcal infections associated with bacterial meningitis, tuberculosis, and infections by drug-resistant bacteria in Burkina Faso, work that he’d like to continue and deepen in the next few years. Abdoul Salam Ouedraogo is also playing a very active role in the establishment of a microbiology course focused on antimicrobial resistance in Burkina Faso, in collaboration with the University of Montpellier.
Professor of Laboratory Medicine (Yonsei University, Seoul), Director of General Affairs (Korean Society of Microbiology), and Director of Infection Control (Korean Society of Laboratory Medicine)
Professor Hyukmin’s work focuses on antibiotic resistance to Gram+ bacteria (particularly Methicilline-resistant Staphylococci/MRSA and Vancomycine-resistant Enterobacteriacae/VRE), the Gram-negative bacteria that cause meningitis (Neisseria spp), and more generally the control of nosocomial infections. He helped establish a surveillance system for multi-resistant pathogens (in collaboration with the Korean Center for Disease Control and Prevention) and is playing an active role in several national programs for the control of nosocomial infections.
July 2016
Prof. Nguyen Vu Trung (Vietnam)
MD/PhD, Associate Professor, Head of the Microbiology Department (Hanoi Medical University), Head of the Clinical Microbiology and Parasitology Department (Faculty of Medical Technology, Hanoi University), Vice-Director (National Hospital for Tropical Diseases, Hanoi)
Professor Nguyen Vu Trung held a postdoctoral internship from 2000 to 2005 at the Karolinska Institute (Stockholm, Sweden). His work addresses various issues in clinical microbiology in Vietnam, with a particular focus on the development and evaluation of “point of care” diagnostic tests adapted to the rapid diagnosis of sepsis. These developments are founded on multiple international collaborations, particularly with specialists in microfluidic approaches working on David Sinton’s team at the University of Toronto (Canada).
The Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and the Institut Mérieux held a symposium on tuberculosis diagnosis in Beijing on September 13-14.
About 30 international scientific experts shared information on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, a major public health challenge around the world and in China in particular.
The speakers discussed the various treatment options as well as in vitro diagnosis, which is key to caring for patients and controlling the spread of bacterial resistance.
Workshops provided an opportunity to identify which of the available diagnostic technologies best suit the various types of medical laboratories in China.
Particular attention was therefore paid to:
– rapid and easy-to-use tests used to identify forms of drug-resistant tuberculosis at a low cost,
– diagnosis of resistance to fluoroquinolones (the main second-line treatments),
– molecular tests targeting a large number of mutations associated with resistance,
– genomics approaches that aid in the overall understanding of the drug-resistant M. tuberculosis genotypes.
The more than 80 participants and their high-level work made this symposium a success. This initiative is in keeping with the commitment by the Institut Mérieux to collaborate with the international scientific community to develop new solutions for fighting infectious diseases.
Professor Francine Ntoumi, from the Faculty of Science and Technology in Brazzaville (Congo), has been awarded the 2016 Christophe Mérieux Prize.
She was awarded the €500,000 prize on June 8, 2016 in Paris by the Institut de France, on behalf of Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux. This award recognizes Professor Ntoumi’s research on infectious diseases in Central Africa and her commitment to improving biomedical research capacity in the Republic of Congo.
“This Prize will help us expand our current research on malaria during pregnancy. Above all, it will help us set up a research and training center on infectious diseases, the first of its kind in Congo“, said Francine Ntoumi.
Professor Ntoumi was trained as a biologist and has a PhD from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. She started her career researching malaria (immunology and molecular epidemiology) at Institut Pasteur in Paris, and continued her work in various countries such as Gabon, Germany, and Congo. She has held important positions in international organizations in the Netherlands and Tanzania.
Institut Mérieux participated in VIVA TECHNOLOGY, an international technology event that took place from June 30 to July 2, 2016 in Paris.
During this event, Institut Mérieux launched an innovation challenge for startups: “’One Health’ in action with connected diagnostics and big data”.
A number of startups responded to the challenge, and the winning company was i-Nside, based in Strasbourg, France. The prize included:
– A €50,000 convertible loan from Mérieux Développement, the Institute’s investment company
– €30,000 in coaching from Mérieux Université (“Transforming innovation into a profitable and sustainable business “)
– Privileged access to Institut Mérieux’s network of companies
The start-up i-Nside based in Strasbourg is using visual recognition solutions to build an accurate medical diagnosis platform. Through its patent portfolio, applied artificial intelligence systems, and sustainable mobile technology, i-Nside is bringing reliable and cost-efficient medical devices to physicians and patients all over the world including traditionally underserved markets like some parts of Africa, Asia, and South America.
First application is acute otitis: with a small device, one can attach to any smartphone, i-Nside is taking professional-grade medical images of the human ear and use them to diagnose problems.
i-Nside is achieving 99% accuracy in identifying ear problems with this visual diagnostic tool.
i-Nside have already partnered with the worldwide leader of endoscopic tools Karl Storz for distribution and is working with Clarifai on the artificial intelligence systems.
Following a successful validation of the proof of concept using partnerships with external providers, the award money will be leveraged by internalizing the next development of the artificial intelligence algorithm and by launching the commercialization.
bioMérieux has launched a new educational website focused on the fight against bacterial resistance to antibiotics: http://www.antimicrobial-resistance.biomerieux.com.
Because antibiotic resistance has a significant impact on public health, bioMérieux, an Institut Mérieux company specialized in in vitro diagnostics, has chosen to devote an entire website to this major public health issue.
The Mérieux Research Grants program, launched in 2009, has led to the creation of an exceptional network of scientists from around the world, with the objective to boost innovation in the fight against infectious diseases and cancer as well as improvements to nutrition. Without a doubt, the excellence and diversity of the projects presented this year will once again demonstrate the value of this research strategy that seeks to overcome geographic and disciplinary boundaries.