BioMerieux offers support for European Antibiotic Awareness Day

BioMerieux has helped to support European Antibiotic Awareness Day, which took place last week to raise the profile of an increasingly prominent issue in healthcare.

To coincide with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control-organised event, which took place on November 18th 2011, the life science company's subsidiaries provided educational tools to help inform the public about the problem.

Bacterial resistance to antibiotics has been recognised as an increasingly prominent threat to global health by leading organisations, making the development of new diagnostic tests, such as those offered by BioMerieux, more important.

European Antibiotic Awareness Day is the third major initiative supported by the company in this area in 2011, following the earlier World Health Day and World HAI Forum.

Jean-Luc Belingard, BioMerieux chairman and chief executive officer, said: "We are pleased to support the European Antibiotic Awareness Day and work with clinicians and microbiologists throughout the world to address this issue."

According to financial data published last month, the company has seen strong growth in the first nine months of 2011, with sales up 5.2 percent year-on-year at constant exchange rates.