BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION

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BIOMÉRIEUX
A PIONEER
FOR INNOVATION
1
BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
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FROM ALEXANDRE MÉRIEUX
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
MESSAGE FROM
ALEXANDRE MÉRIEUX
As bioMérieux has become a world
leader in in vitro diagnostics, we
have consistently remained at the
forefront of this field largely due to
our pioneering spirit, exemplified by
our innovation through both internal
and external teams.
Our innovation is naturally driven by
ambitious R&D programs and topnotch scientists. It is also based on
entrepreneurial outreach that has
led our Company to make groundbreaking strategic acquisitions and
forge multidisciplinary collaborations,
even before the dawn of “open
innovation.”
Innovation occurs at the point where
an idea meets its market. It becomes
useful when it fulfills the needs of
patients, clinicians and biologists,
generating added value.
We have developed an original
innovation
model
based
on
international research partnerships
and joint research units, lifting
barriers between disciplines.
Innovation is important, and not
only for R&D teams. It is everybody’s
business. Innovation must be a
constant mindset across all functions,
from production to marketing, human
resources, finance, etc. To ensure
the sustainability of entrepreneurial
innovation, we must preserve our
Company’s agility, which is critical
for rapid decision-making and
implementation. We must also leave
room for independent thinking
to encourage creativity, because
innovative ideas sometime turn up
where you least expect them.
Lastly,
innovation
cannot
be
dissociated from risk taking. This
means “betting” on the future, which
makes sense in the context of an
ambitious strategic vision that must
not be sacrificed to meet short-term
goals.
At bioMérieux, innovation is a mindset
– a combination of daring and an
open mind – that has been handed
down from generation to generation
to serve global public health.
Alexandre Mérieux
Deputy CEO
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CÉDRIC VILLANI
French mathematician, winner of the 2010 Fields Medal,
Director of the Institut Henri Poincaré
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Having taught at the universities of Atlanta, Berkeley and Princeton
in the USA and Lyon in France, Cédric Villani received the Fields
Medal, the most prestigious prize in the world of mathematics, in
2010.
Currently at the head of one of the oldest and most dynamic
international structures dedicated to mathematics and theoretical
physics, he also enjoys sharing his passion for mathematics with
the general public. He is a true spokesman for the French scientific
community and admits to an “obsession“ for research. He is also
actively involved in other fields, of a cultural, economic and social
nature.
During an exclusive interview at the Institut Henri Poincaré as
part of bioMérieux’s 50 th anniversary celebrations, Cédric Villani
spoke to us about the concept of innovation, with simplicity and
enthusiasm.
Define
innovation
Appetite
for risk
Speed of
innovation
Biology in
perspective
Innovation
in life sciences
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
BACKGROUND
• 2012: Publication
of Théorème vivant
• 2000-2010: Lecturer
at the École normale
supérieure in Lyon
• 2010: Winner of the
Fields Medal
• 2009: Appointed
Director of the Institut
Henri Poincaré in Paris
• 1998: Thesis in
mathematics
• 1973: Born in
Brive-la-Gaillarde
(France)
Show more
“Biology is, in many ways,
an extreme science.“
The seven ingredients for innovation
5
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THE AUTOMATION
REVOLUTION
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In the early 1960s, in France and many other countries,
medical tests were often still carried out in pharmacies. The
comprehensive check-up, as we know it today, did not exist.
Most medical tests remained manual up until the early 1970s.
FOR THE FUTURE
From its very creation, in 1963, BD Mérieux offered a range of
products for laboratory testing, thanks to Institut Mérieux’s small
reagents department and the products of Baltimore Biological
Laboratory (a subsidiary of Becton-Dickinson). This product
range covered the fields of bacteriology, biochemistry,
coagulation and virology. The sales team subsequently
had great success with innovative products such as the
Fibrometer, dehydrated culture media and “Sensidiscs“, used to simplify antibiotic susceptibility
testing. The company’s researchers worked with
three essential factors in mind: time savings, safety
and standardization.
The introduction of automation during the 1970s
was a major milestone for the diagnostics industry,
heralding the start of a revolution in the biologist’s roles
and working practices. Techniques became standardized and
the comprehensive check-up came into being.
The company’s researchers worked with
three essential factors in mind: time
savings, safety and standardization.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
50 years,
50 innovations
Today, bioMérieux commercializes nearly 2,500 products and
consumables. Find out about 50 innovations of particular note
over the course of the company’s 50-year history.
ZOOM
However, biologists still had to group samples in order to run their
instruments at full capacity. It was in the 1980s that the possibility of
individual tests began to emerge. The acquisition of API Systems in
1987 and Vitek Systems in 1988 were turning points in bioMérieux’s
history. VIDAS ® , a Vitek Systems instrument, would become the
company’s flagship product, enabling it to make a spectacular entry
on the automated immunoassays market in 1991, in the clinical sector
and, later on, in the industrial microbiological testing sector.
By the end of the 20 th century, automation had been extended to
every area of in vitro diagnostics, which is now on course for further
change with the advent of new technologies.
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FOR THE FUTURE
Today, bioMérieux’s R&D team is multi-disciplinary, integrating
not only medical and biological expertise, but also engineering
and information technology skills. This openness to new specialist
areas reflects a profound change in diagnostic activities with, in
particular, a move towards computerized results.
The automation initiated in recent years has reached new
heights with the deployment of comprehensive and
integrated systems such as bioMérieux’s FMLA ®,
which automates the diagnostic process from sample
preparation through to results. This offers biologists
and clinicians quicker access to results that are more
reliable and more accurate, which in turn is a great
benefit for patients.
Learn more about FMLA ®
New methods, such as decisional algorithms to interpret
data, digital imaging, mass spectrometry and telemedicine
are bringing about major changes in the practice of medicine
and diagnostics and, therefore, in the organization of healthcare.
These are the signs of an underlying trend: the convergence
of robotization, information technologies and the life sciences
(see FOR THE FUTURE section).
In the field of in vitro diagnostics, technological progress means
that data processing is an essential factor: it is not simply a case
of providing as much data as possible, but rather a question
of improving data processing, interpretation and transmission
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
KEY DATES
2012
2011
2010
2004
2002
1997
1992
1991
1985
1979
in order to speed up the decision-making process for
clinicians.
1972
1969
The need for sequencing, for instance, results in an
exponential increase in the volume of data available.
The biologists’ ability to collect, sort and, above
all, analyze data is becoming more crucial than
An underlying trend: the
ever for the medical decision-making process.
convergence of robotization,
Although the reliability and turnaround time
of results remain at the heart of diagnostic
information technologies and the
specialists’ concerns, the focus in the future will
life sciences.
primarily be on facilitating the interpretation of
those results.
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OPEN INNOVATION
AHEAD OF ITS TIME
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Internationalization, acquisitions and partnerships are the key
to bioMérieux’s model for innovation. Through its pioneering
approach, the Company has succeeded in building upon its
solid foundations in biology to embrace the principles of open
innovation: it has set up programs in the countries where the
world’s top specialists and researchers are now concentrated
and established multi-disciplinary collaborations with publicand private-sector life sciences groups.
INTERNATIONALIZATION OF RESEARCH
With the global research landscape undergoing deep-seated
changes owing to the advent of new centers of excellence,
bioMérieux is internationalizing its research in order to seize
every opportunity and rise to worldwide public health
challenges.
With 17 R&D sites around the world, bioMérieux
deploys its innovation strategy in those countries
from which a large proportion of current scientific
and medical progress originates.
This global outlook enables bioMérieux to maintain
excellent scientific intelligence and to establish
partnerships with numerous international research
entities in the USA, China, the UK, Germany, Switzerland,
Sweden, Italy and Singapore.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
KEY FIGURES
40 partnerships with
leading research centers
throughout the world.
It promotes improved knowledge of medical needs in
every region of the world and enhances the company’s
capacity to innovate, thanks to the diversity of partners
from different cultures.
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CROSS-FERTILIZATION
The field of diagnostics has changed considerably over the
last few decades, with the emergence of new technologies
to support conventional biological testing. For this reason,
bioMérieux has sought to explore various disciplines through a
sustained policy of external partnerships.
The joint research units are at the heart of this strategy of
collaboration and cross-fertilization. With the creation of these
units, starting in the 1980s, bioMérieux introduced an entirely
new approach to innovation, with teams from different cultures
and with different skills, working together in a complementary
manner, in the same place and on shared themes.
FOR THE FUTURE
For many years, bioMérieux has worked with research entities in
both the public and private sectors including not only academic
institutes, universities and hospitals but also biotechnology
and industrial companies. bioMérieux has forty collaborative
agreements on a diverse range of targeted topics.
It established preferential relations with the CEA as early as
1997 with respect to new technologies, and with the Institut
Pasteur in infectiology through a major collaborative agreement
signed in 2009.
A COMMITMENT TO RESEARCH
Over and above their own activities, bioMérieux and Institut
Mérieux actively contribute to strengthening French scientific
research, giving momentum to numerous multi-disciplinary
projects that serve public interests.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
BIOMÉRIEUX’S GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS
NETHERLANDS
NORWAY
SWEDEN
TURKEY
UNITED KINGDOM
JAPAN
UNITED STATES
CHINA
Legend
New Technologies
FRANCE
SWITZERLAND
GERMANY
AUSTRALIA
New Platforms
New Pathogens
New Markers
Other Partnerships
ZOOM
bioMérieux is also involved in ADNA, a collaborative R&D program for diagnostic
progress through new therapeutic methods in the field of personalized medicine
and theranostics, to fight against infectious diseases, cancer and certain genetic
diseases. Initiated by Dr. Christophe Mérieux in 2006 and coordinated by Institut
Mérieux, ADNA brings together various partners and is supported by the French
government.
In 2005, alongside Institut Mérieux, bioMérieux became a founding member of
Lyonbiopôle, a global competitiveness cluster in the field of biology. In 2012, the
same parties came together again to create the BIOASTER Institute for Technological
Research in Infectiology, as part of the French government’s Investments for the
Future program. BIOASTER now brings together a number of biology companies
and academic research entities and is intended to play a major role in converting
research results into products that are accessible to patients.
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Sustainable by design
bioMérieux
aims
to
reduce
the
environmental impact of its products and
their packaging throughout their entire
life cycle. Starting from the initial product
development phases, the Company
adopts an eco-design approach in order
to encourage efficiency in the use of
materials and energy. bioMérieux also
applies this eco-design approach to its
buildings.
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FOR THE FUTURE
Going into orbit
The impetus behind the creation of VITEK ®
was somewhat unusual. This automated
testing system has been programmed to
detect bacteria that differ from the norm.
From farm to folks
With the launch of its veterinary diagnostic
division in 2012, following the acquisition
of AES and ADIAGENE, bioMérieux
provides innovative solutions for testing
needs along the entire food processing
chain, from the farm to the consumer’s
fork. This new area of activity carries on
the Mérieux tradition of biology without
borders between human and veterinary
medicine.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
Homing in on intellectual property
Every year, bioMérieux submits between
30 and 40 patent applications to protect
the innovations arising from the work of
its research and development team and
its partnerships. The company currently
holds 478 patent families.
Awards
bioMérieux has received, in recent years,
the following awards in recognition of
its innovative products.
Performance Solutions™
bioMérieux now offers its customers comprehensive
support through the Performance Solutions™
service, an approach enabling customers to manage
the increasingly complex regulatory environment
and to meet the ever greater need for profitability.
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BIO-INDUSTRIAL
ASSETS
AT THE CUTTING EDGE
OF INNOVATION
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FOR THE FUTURE
With several hundreds of millions of tests produced each year and
an installed base of more than 69,400 instruments, bioMérieux
knows that innovation must be useful and accessible to ensure
sustainability and success. Every innovative product must be
reproducible in routine conditions and on a large scale. But it
must also be capable of being commercialized and delivered
throughout the world, while maintaining the quality and
reliability on which bioMérieux has built its reputation.
With 19 industrial sites in nine countries, bioMérieux’s
bio-industrial assets are developing at the same
rapid pace as that of Company: our acquisitions, new
subsidiaries and new products are driving exchanges
and transfer of good practices between sites as well
as the optimization and harmonization of procedures
at a global level. It is for this reason that bioMérieux
maintains a policy of continuous investment with regard
to its production facilities: the Company therefore has
a cutting-edge bio-industrial network, enabling it to deliver
products that comply with the most stringent international
quality standards, to customers throughout the world.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
IN PICTURES
Marcy l’Etoile
Basingstoke
Saint-Vulbas
Verniolle
La Balme
Shanghai
Combourg
Madrid
Florence
Craponne
Durham
The innovation process does not stop once a
product has been launched. bioMérieux’s production
specialists are constantly looking for technical
innovations that will result in shorter manufacturing
times, lower production and transportation costs,
and reductions in the product’s volume and
environmental footprint.
Technology, robotization and automation are present
at every stage of our production lines, but it is the
men and women of bioMérieux who make and will
always continue to make all the difference. Through
their knowledge and expertise, they invent new
industrial solutions for laboratory professionals, in
order to improve patient management day after day.
St. Louis
Lombard
Hyderabad
Grenoble
Sydney
Brisbane
Jacarepagua
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20 YEARS OF SUCCESS
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When bioMérieux acquired the American company Vitek Systems
in 1988, it discovered a somewhat odd machine that had been
overlooked, whose potential was not immediately apparent.
The instrument, which was designed to detect pathogens, had
hardly been used and had no accompanying reagents. Could
it be used to carry out infectiology, hormonology, serology or
cancerology analyses?
FOR THE FUTURE
Three weeks of testing were all the company needed to discern
its potential: quantitative assays were indeed possible! Within
a year, bioMérieux’s teams had developed around a dozen
parameters of excellent quality enabling results to be obtained
even more rapidly then radio-immunology reference methods:
the first immunoassay platform of the VIDAS ® range was
born.
Following its launch in 1991, VIDAS ® rapidly became a
great success and has since become a reference in the
diagnostics industry. This test platform changed the
entire immunoassays sector, providing laboratories
with a simple and robust technique to replace more
complex methods that required more manual handling.
Today, tens of thousands of healthcare professionals
around the world use a VIDAS ® instrument every day.
And these users are very loyal.
VIDAS ® is extremely robust and has a very low failure rate,
making it particularly suitable for use in emerging countries.
Already an innovation at its launch, VIDAS ® has continued to
evolve ever since in anticipation of laboratories’ needs.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
1990 Presentation of
VIDAS ® at the
International
Biology Days in
Paris
1991 Commercial
launch of
VIDAS ®
1992 Launch of
mini VIDAS ®
2000 New design,
new IT
capabilities
Today, with approximately 31,000 instruments used by
clinical and industrial laboratory professionals, VIDAS ®
accounts for the largest installed base of immunoassay
systems in the world. In 2012, the VIDAS ® 3 - a new
generation of the instrument offering new services was launched, heralding the start of a new chapter in
one of bioMérieux’s greatest success stories.
2011 Every second
3 tests are
carried out
on a VIDAS ®
instrument
worldwide
2012 Launch of
VIDAS ® 3
Find out more about VIDAS ® 3
2013 99 parameters
available and
soon 100...
Focus on phages
Phages are very specific viruses that only
infect bacteria. They are used to capture
and isolate targeted bacteria in a sample.
Video “The action of phages“
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FOR THE FUTURE
TEMPO®
FAST-PACED QUALITY CONTROL
FOR FOOD PROCESSING
With the advent of TEMPO ®, designed specifically for
microbiological testing in food processing, microflora
enumeration tests achieved an automation milestone in 2005.
bioMérieux’s Industrial Microbiology Unit took its inspiration
from the VITEK ® cards when designing TEMPO ®. Once again,
bioMérieux’s multi-disciplinary teams, with their ability to adapt
the company’s expertise in the clinical sector and apply it in
the industrial sector, proved to be an asset in the creation
of new products: TEMPO ® offers entirely automated reading
of results and complete traceability, through a unique bar
code on its card. TEMPO ® is the only automated system that
operates on the principle of a card using the MPN statistical
method. It offers a time-saving of up to 48 hours in relation to
conventional methods and therefore provides a solution to the
time pressures faced by professionals in the food processing
sector.
TEMPO ® is particularly suitable to meet the needs of
food processing quality control laboratories in terms
of flexibility, as it can be adapted for use with various
types of product samples, both solid and liquid. The
first version included applications for use with meat
and meat-based products.
The system has been enhanced with several parameters
and now offers a total of nine. TEMPO ® can be used to test
for all the quality indicators routinely tested in food samples,
including total microflora, total coliforms, enterobacteria,
E. coli, S. aureus, yeasts, moulds and lactic bacteria.
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BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
THE WINNING CARD
VITEK®
The acquisition of Vitek Systems, world leader in automated
bacteriological analysis, was sealed in Missouri on December
31, 1988, providing bioMérieux with a foothold in North America.
bioMérieux thus gained access to VITEK ® , an instrument designed
to identify bacteria and fungi. The system had a database
aimed specifically at industrial applications, thus ensuring that
any pathogens present in food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic
products, or their production environment, could be identified.
The first step in the extension of the range was the launch
of VITEK ® 2, which enabled users to obtain faster results from
identification and antibiotic susceptibility tests, using the
VITEK ® card, an innovative and miniaturized consumable. VITEK ®
2 provides the information needed to select a targeted antibiotic
treatment on the day of testing, thus improving patient care and
reducing healthcare spending.
The second step was VITEK ® 2 Compact, equipped with Advanced
Expert System software, enabling the interpretative reading of
antibiotic susceptibility tests. Designed for small and medium
laboratories seeking an automated system capable of processing
the majority of their routine tests and providing quick and reliable
results. VITEK ® 2 Compact made VITEK ® 2 technology accessible
to all laboratories.
In 2011, bioMérieux launched VITEK ® MS, a new identification
system using MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry.
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FOR
THE
FUTURE
FOR
THE
FUTURE
22
CUTTING-EDGE TECHNOLOGIES
DESIGNED FOR
PATIENTS
The development of new products for quick and personalized
diagnosis is a major scientific and technical challenge that
calls for a multi-disciplinary approach, combining bioMérieux’s
expertise in the biosciences with technological innovation.
Technologies such as sequencing, mass spectrometry,
imaging and spectroscopy, and even techniques arising from
mechanics, robotics and automation, are beginning to appear
in the field of diagnostics. These technologies are crucial to the
development of new diagnostic applications. In addition, they
open up new possibilities to further reduce the time between
taking a sample and providing doctors with test results.
Sequencing...
Mass
spectrometry...
Imaging...
Spectroscopy...
BIOMÉRIEUX A PIONEER FOR INNOVATION
The growth of cultures is currently a key step in microbiology laboratory
processes. bioMérieux aims to enhance the medical value of diagnostics in the
very short term with the launch of its new-generation automated blood culture
analyzer. Scheduled for 2013, VIRTUOTM is a highly automated
system enabling considerable time-savings to be made and
further enhancing the reliability of results. It uses new culture
media that improve performance and offers new features,
including control of vial filling, automatic alerts and immediate
notification in the event of positive samples. Easy to set up,
as the instrument automatically loads the samples, VIRTUOTM
helps to optimize laboratory workflows.
Connectivity is also an important consideration, particularly for large-scale
laboratories, as it enables valuable time savings by strengthening relations within
laboratories as well as between doctors and laboratories. In this area, bioMérieux
can draw upon its in-depth knowledge of infectiology and implement its information
technologies to develop and innovate in its areas of expertise. For instance, the
Myla ® middleware program is part of the solutions and services offered in the
context of full microbiology laboratory automation (FMLA ®).
FILMARRAY ®
Syndromic diagnosis
becomes a reality
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A STO R Y F O R TO M O R R OW
Contact
bioMérieux
376 Chemin de l’Orme
69280 Marcy l’Etoile
FRANCE
contact@biomerieux.com
“A story for tomorrow“ is a publication by bioMérieux’s Internal and External Communication Departments - Managing Editor: Michel Baguenault
Design and production: Thera Conseil - Photo credits: Thera Conseil - Graphicobsession - Fotolia - Gettyimages - Noël Bouchut - Christian Ganet - Institut Mérieux
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