French President Francois Hollande, along with a French political and business delegation, came to China April 25 for his first formal visit. Founder of the world-famous in vitro diagnosis enterprise BioMerieux, Alain Merieux, joined the delegation as a representative of the French biotech industry. During the France-China Enterprise Economic and Trade Forum, held in the Great Hall of the People, Merieux presented a lecture and served as a host on the stage of public health.

Looking back at China's development in the past 30 years, BioMerieux has witnessed much of China's reform and change. Adhering to the aim of "In China, for China," it actively participated in the construction of the social medical health system and established many cooperative relationships with the Chinese government, scientific research institutes and Chinese enterprises in the field of public health care. Great achievements have been made in the fields of prevention and control of serious infectious diseases, development of disease diagnosis markers, food safety and environmental microorganism monitoring.

Since the first BioMerieux automatic diagnostic instrument entered China in 1985, Merieux has closely followed development and opportunities in China. BioMerieux established an office in Beijing in 1997 and transferred the center of the Asian-Pacific region to Shanghai in 2005. It also established two industrialized production bases integrating research and development and production in Shanghai from 2007 to 2010 to provide localized, effective and high-quality products used for microculture and rapid diagnosis.

"I endow my name with a cause, and will devote all my life to it," Merieux said. Born in 1938, Merieux holds a PhD in pharmacy. He served as an intern in the hospitals of Lyon and subsequently attended the PMD program at Harvard Business School. In 1963, he founded BioMerieux and has been chairman of the company ever since. BioMerieux now ranks among the top 10 in vitro diagnostics companies worldwide. With a presence in more than 150 countries through its 39 subsidiaries and a large network of distributors, BioMerieux has close to 6,500 employees worldwide.

On June 30, 2011, Merieux received the China Health Award - the highest award for international cooperation in health care - in Wuhan, Hubei Province, by Chen Zhu, the then minister of health of China. In 2012, President Xi Jinping, then vice chairman, met Merieux at the Great Hall of the People and encouraged his work in the Sino-French cooperation in health. "Now China is experiencing medical reform, which shows us the enormous growth potential of our enterprise," Merieux said. "Simultaneously, we will continue to strengthen cooperation in various areas to develop more diagnostic products conforming to China's standards, to support and cooperate with the development of health services of China, and to ultimately achieve the new mission of 'In China, For China.'"

Global Times