Pierre Boulud

Chief Operating Officer & Executive Vice President, Clinical Operations
bioMérieux S.A.

Tell us about your organisation and its journey to date.

A family-owned company, bioMérieux has grown to become a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics. Our entrepreneurial adventure started in 1963, but our roots go all the way back to the 19th century and is anchored in the Mérieux’s family commitment to improve health while maintaining the values of respect, accountability, transparency, and sharing. 

Today, we are located in 45 countries and serve more than 160 countries with the support of a large network of distributors. Our expertise in infectious diseases and our international presence enable us to successfully partner with labs and organisations to offer diagnostic solutions that meet their evolving needs and improve patient care.

We specialise in clinical applications that represent 85 per cent of our sales. We develop and produce diagnostic solutions that help healthcare professionals quickly and reliably determine pathology and provide them with crucial information for optimal patient care.  

We also apply our expertise to meeting industrial microbiology needs, building innovative, precise technologies that ensure the quality and safety of food and pharmaceutical products.   

How has the organisation evolved to address the challenges of an ever-changing healthcare sector? Please list some accomplishments.

bioMérieux’s motto is “Pioneering Diagnostics” so innovation is at the core of our company’s DNA and has been our driving force for more than 55 years. In 2021, we reinvested 11.5 percent of sales in R&D.

This investment ensures our R&D teams can fully combine their knowledge of medicine with emerging techniques and new technologies to combat infectious diseases worldwide. At bioMérieux, innovation aims to reach two priority goals:

  • Increase the medical and predictive value of the results delivered by our diagnostic tests
  • Improve laboratory workflow and optimise their overall operational performance

To illustrate these two commitments, I can cite our highly differentiated BACT/ALERT® VIRTUO® instrument for blood culture. It seamlessly integrates the blood culture workflow to help labs provide clinicians with efficient and actionable results so that septic patients can receive appropriate antibiotic therapy earlier for a better clinical outcome. I can also mention our IT solution, BIOMÉRIEUX VISION SUITE, which translates laboratory and hospital data into relevant and insightful decision-making information for clinicians.

Give us an insight into your portfolio and solutions targeted at the Middle East region. 

bioMérieux’s development strategy is based on an international, long-term vision to meet the healthcare challenges related to infectious diseases all over the world. The Europe, Middle East and Africa region amounts to 33 per cent of our sales so it is an important region for us. 

At bioMérieux, the fight against antibiotic resistance is one of our priorities. Our comprehensive range of solutions supports clinicians in making medical decisions. Antimicrobial Stewardship (AMS) is one of the main ways to preserve antibiotic efficacy. We provide the most comprehensive Antimicrobial Stewardship diagnostic solution. We are also absolutely committed to the fight against sepsis, an often-overlooked syndrome, as well as respiratory infections, including COVID-19.

Our product and solution portfolio flexibility enables us to meet our customer's expectations whatever their evolving need in diagnostics, whatever the country.  

Tell us about your recent and upcoming investments and partnerships in this field. 

Innovation is the driving force behind our response to public health challenges. Our teams are constantly innovating to improve pathogen detection and identification, the speed of results and data analysis. We regularly listen to our customers and track healthcare evolutions to ensure our innovations remain relevant. 

With this open-minded approach we then work on investing and developing in key diagnostic areas that need improving or re-inventing. In 2021, we brought several innovative solutions to market that targeted key needs and are in line with our company priorities around infectious diseases, AMS, Sepsis, Respiratory Infections, data management and more. 

What will you be showcasing at Medlab Middle East 2023? 

bioMérieux is excited to once again be at Medlab Middle East to showcase three exciting new innovations: 

Sepsis

For Sepsis we have SPECIFIC REVEAL™ an automated instrument bringing rapid Antibiotic Susceptibility Testing (AST) for bloodstream infections. This modular system provides fast, actionable results and is fully integrated into bioMérieux’s Sepsis Solution.


Antimicrobial Stewardship

VITEK® MS PRIME, a mass spectrometry analyser, provides superior workflow for faster time to reported results to positively impact patient care and AMS programmes.


Infectious Disease and Emergency Care

VIDAS® KUBE™, an automated immunoanalyser, making automation more accessible with its benchtop, modular design, easy implementation and improved confidence in results. 

In addition to the above, what opportunities are you looking forward to at the upcoming event?

It is always a genuine pleasure to be at Medlab Middle East 2023 to meet our customers and distributors from the Middle East and surrounding countries. It is a time to get to understand further their needs and for us to demonstrate how our in vitro diagnostic advances can increase lab productivity and help get results to their clinicians and patients faster. 

By keeping pace with local healthcare realities we strengthen our public health mission. Knowledge, understanding teamed with expertise is important to provide an efficient approach from developing a new solution right up to rolling it out across a country’s laboratories, ultimately to bring greater benefits for patients.

Please tell us about your plans for the year 2023.

We intend to still champion the diagnostic fight against Antibiotic Resistance and Sepsis. We will continue to push back technology limits and create innovations that resolve diagnostic healthcare challenges. Finally, we will keep an eye on the need for diagnostic evolutions to meet unforeseen challenges like COVID-19.

Anything else you would like to add?

Our motivation to uphold bioMérieux’s public health mission continues to be high and is echoed by the engagement at every level of our workforce, regardless of an employee’s job. Contributing collectively to the common good: is this not the most rewarding role a company can play?