Marcy l'Etoile, France - November 24, 2006. (MARCY-L'ETOILE, FRANCE - November 24, 2006) – bioMérieux today announced that it will be awarded up to €54.5 million over the next ten years by France’s Agence de l’Innovation Industrielle to help fund the “Advanced Diagnostics and New therapeutic Approaches” (ADNA) program, led by Mérieux Alliance. Of this amount, €25.6 million will be in the form of grants and €28.9 million in the form of loans. The financing is subject to approval by the European Union, which is expected to make a decision in the second quarter of 2007.
“Innovation has always been at the heart of our strategy,” said Stéphane Bancel, the group’s Deputy Director. “The agency’s substantial aid will contribute to the development of new diagnostic products, especially for infectious diseases and cancer. It will support our ambitious project to pursue value-added molecular biology research, which bioMérieux would not have been able to do alone.”
The ADNA program aims to develop personalized medical solutions for cancer, infectious diseases and rare genetic diseases. Four strategically aligned partners, bioMérieux, Généthon, GenoSafe® and Transgene, have teamed up to meet the challenge. An initial partnership between bioMérieux and Ipsen in oncology research has given the project an additional boost.
Over the next ten years, the assistance provided by the agency will help finance programs designed to:
§ Find, identify and validate biomarkers. The identification of biomarkers will help scientists to develop diagnostic tests for earlier disease detection, determine appropriate treatments and monitor treatment response in patients.
§ Develop new molecular diagnostic platforms to perform high-value-added analyses of infectious diseases and certain types of cancer.
Focusing on patients and their illnesses, the ADNA program will address a number of major public health and healthcare cost issues.
About bioMérieux
bioMérieux is a leading international diagnostics group that specialises in the field of in vitro diagnostics for clinical and industrial applications. bioMérieux designs, develops, manufactures and markets systems (i.e. reagents, instruments and software) used in:
- Clinical applications: the diagnosis of infectious diseases such as hepatitis, HIV, tuberculosis and respiratory illnesses, as well as pathologies such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer, based on the analysis of biological samples (such as blood, saliva or urine); and
- Industrial applications: the microbiological analysis of food, environments (such as water and air), surfaces and pharmaceutical and cosmetic products, based on the analysis of product or environmental samples.
In 2005, bioMérieux sales reached 994 million euros. The company is present in more than 150 countries through 35 subsidiaries and a large network of distributors, which positions the company well to benefit from the growth potential of the in vitro diagnostics market. Some important drivers that underpin this growth are aging populations and age-related illness, illnesses related to life-style and eating habits, emerging new pathogens, the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the fight against bio-terrorism, the recognition of the importance of the quality of food products.
bioMérieux is listed on the Eurolist of Euronext, Paris (FR0010096479 – BIM). Other information can be found at www.biomerieux.com
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