Alain Merieux: BioMerieux Grows Up Together with the Chinese Market

Alain Merieux, founder of the global IVD (in vitro diagnosis) company BioMerieux meets the press in Beijing April 27, 2013.

Mr. Alain Merieux, founder of the global IVD (in vitro diagnosis) company BioMerieux, member of the French political and commercial mission led by the French president Francois Holland, met with Yang Xiong, mayor of Shanghai Municipality today and signed "the Cooperation Agreement on Biological Sample Extraction and Program Training" with relevant departments after the meeting. Mr. Alain Merieux disclosed at the subsequent press conference that BioMerieux is researching on a type of method through which H7N9 virus may be detected in a rapid and accurate. In view of the rapidly developing market in China, BioMerieux is expected to expand its Phase II project at its Shanghai Site as early as in the end of this year after obtaining the approval of local government. By that time, the new medical program of bacterial detection will be put into operation.

Ever-growing Chinese market

BioMerieux has long been the world leader in VID in the past five decades. With 41 subsidiaries covering more than 160 countries in the world, BioMerieux is blessed with a strong business network. It recorded EURO1.57 billion in operating income in 2012 and 87% of which came from its operations outside of France. Although the proportion of operations in the United States, Europe and other developed countries takes the lead, its continuous growth on the Chinese market has been remarkable.

In 2011, BioMerieux registered a 27% of annual growth rate in China; in 2012, the growth rate exceeded 40%, far much higher than that of previous years. It's because of the high-speed development in China that BioMerieux has realized continuous increase in operating income despite of the weak economic landscape in the world in general, and in Europe in particular.

As things stand, the history of BioMerieux's entrance into China could be traced back to 1978. Back then, Mr. Alain Merieux led the Institut Merieux to visit China, opening the door of serving the Chinese market; in 1985, BioMerieux sold its first medical instrument in China; in 1995, BioMerieux set up its sales office in Shanghai which is responsible for its sales and marketing operation in China. The development of BioMerieux in China in the past more than thirty years has been truly expressive thanks to China's reform and opening-up policy and medical system reform, especially the astounding advances in rational use of antibiotics, food safety monitoring and other fields.

After rapid development in the past two years, BioMerieux China has ranked the third among the Organization and next only to America and France; and its Shanghai office has become one of the top three global strategic centers of BioMerieux.

According to Mr. Alain Merieux, Shanghai is of strategic importance for BioMerieux in two aspects: first, it can provide technologies more suitable for China; and second, it can produce high quality products both China and the wider international community need. Between April 2010 and March 2011, 7.4 million HIV/AIDS detection kits and 5 million Hepatitis B detection kits of BioMerieux produced by its China joint ventures were exported to 73 countries.

The Chinese government is planned to invest US$90 billion in medical treatment from 2010 to 2020 and the IVD market has increased from US$600 million five years ago to today's US$2 billion, next only to the emerging market in the US and Germany.

"In view of the rapidly developing market in China, BioMerieux is expected to expand its Phase II project at its Shanghai Base as early as in the end of this year after obtaining the approval of local government. By that time, the new medical program of bacterial detection will be put into operation," said Mr. Alain Merieux, "China will become the base camp of BioMerieux's global development."

All-round Cooperation Contributes to Win-win Scenario

BioMerieux has developed its unique culture –Win-win Cooperation - after more than thirty years of development in China. In 2007, it joined forces with Kehua Bio-engineering in establishing the joint venture Shanghai BioMerieux IVD Company; in 2009, Transgene, its biotech arm specializing in producing therapeutic cancer vaccines, worked with China's largest TCM enterprise Tasly Group in establishing Tasly-Transgene (Tianjin) Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd.. On top of that, it also collaborated with Silliker China and Beijing Quality Supervision and Inspection Center in establishing the joint venture in the field of food safety detection in Shanghai. These joint ventures have contributed a lot to the ever-rising growth rate of BioMerieux in China.

In addition, BioMerieux has also greatly benefited from cooperation programs it launched in the field of public health. In late-2012, it signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Changzhou Center for Disease Control and Prevention in officially using the demonstrative lab for microbiological detection standardization built by the two sides. With 9 latest detecting instruments and 1 central processing system introduced from BioMerieux, the lab can rapidly detect pathogenic bacterium among numerous bacteria, complete the analysis on the source of pathogenic bacterium after food poisoning and find the first transmitter, playing an important role in effectively controlling infection source and epidemic.

It is worth mentioning that Foundation Mérieux, the non-profit organization affiliated to BioMerieux, also actively participates in the prevention and control of infectious diseases and the resistance of antibiotic abuse. For instance, the second round of tuberculosis prevention and control program launched last year, the result of cooperation with the Ministry of Health, is designed to help western China build up its capacity in rapid diagnosis of multi-drug resistance tuberculosis.