Media Advisory: Portland Company Adding 26 Jobs and Develops Site to Meet Global Market Demands

The company is expanding and plans to ramp up its microbiological culture media production by doubling its capacity at their Portland-area facility to meet global market demands in the healthcare and public consumables market. The company plans to increase the number of manufacturing and production jobs from its current 65 at the Wilsonville facility to 90. As a result, today there are 10 openings at the Wilsonville-based facility with the plan to add 16 more later this year. The open positions can be found on www.biomerieux-usa.com.

The Wilsonville facility is also currently undergoing significant investments to double capacity:

• Building a new Quality Control Laboratory
• Expanding the current refrigeration system
• Remodeling the warehouse facility to meet global storage demands.

PML Microbiologicals’ 40 year history dates back to 1969, when Art Torland, a local hospital medical technologist and his brother Julian Torland joined as partners and built their first manufacturing facility in Wilsonville, OR to supply culture media to local hospital laboratories.

As part of the current expansion, the facility has already adopted several Green initiatives in an effort to be more environmentally responsible. For example, a strict control of the facility temperatures during the summer (76°F) and winter (68°F), along with replacement of disposable paper products with more reusable containers to decrease landfill waste, is already part of the day-to-day operations in Wilsonville.

Several of bioMérieux’s other facilities have already incorporated a wide range of Green initiatives, many of which will soon be implemented at the Wilsonville site, including:

• Lower water consumption in restrooms
• Use of CFL lights in place of incandescent lights
• Recycling of all plastics, glass, cardboard and paper
• Replacing older equipment with higher energy efficient equipment
• Improvements in product packaging and increased use of recycled materials
• To offset air travel carbon, a program to plant trees in Brazil is planned for this year

This latest expansion continues bioMérieux’s ongoing commitment as a leading global provider of high quality microbiology products and services.

About the Products Manufactured in Wilsonville

Microbiological culture media are products designed to promote the growth of microorganisms, such as bacteria, yeast and mold. The Wilsonville facility produces a wide range of prepared media and many related products used by Microbiology laboratories in the U.S. and in other countries around the world.

How the Products are used

Microbiology products such as prepared culture media are used in many industries such as in:

• clinical laboratories, to identify the source of infections and help direct antimicrobial therapy
• pharmaceutical production, to verify that drugs and vaccines are free from microbiological contamination
• environmental, to ensure that drinking water and wastewater are not burdened with harmful contaminants
• cosmetic and personal care products, to ensure consumer safety
• food and beverage industries, to monitor quality control testing and ensure food safety

Culture media production is a highly technical process requiring skilled individuals with an interest in the life sciences and a desire to help supply a growing market around the world.

About bioMérieux

Advancing Diagnostics to Improve Public Health

A world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics for 45 years, bioMérieux is present in more than 150 countries through 39 subsidiaries and a large network of distributors. In 2008, revenues reached €1.111 billion with 84 percent of sales outside of France.

bioMérieux provides diagnostic solutions (reagents, instruments, software) that determine the source of disease and contamination to improve patient health and ensure consumer safety. Its products are used for diagnosing infectious diseases and providing high medical value results for cancer screening and monitoring and cardiovascular emergencies. They are also used for detecting microorganisms in agri-food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products. bioMérieux is listed on the NYSE Euronext Paris market (Code: BIM – Code ISIN: FR0010096479). Other information can be found at www.biomerieux.com.

Fleishman Hillard
Tim Baker
Tél. : + 1 216 338-8086
tim.baker@fleishman.com