bioMérieux's Odyssey Tour Brings Education and Training to Healthcare Professionals and Awareness of Healthcare Associated Infections

bioMérieux, a world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics, is embarking on a tour across the United States to provide industry professionals with innovative training in advanced diagnostics solutions that aim to improve public health. The 80-foot Odyssey, equipped with a mobile diagnostics laboratory with theater and classroom, will bring lab automation, product training and certification directly to its customers. The bioMérieux Odyssey tour has over 50 stops and will officially launch on May 28 from bioMérieux’s U.S. headquarters in Durham. This is the third year for the bioMérieux education tour, and the Odyssey is the company’s largest mobile endeavor to date.

As part of the Odyssey’s mission to address diagnostics solutions that impact public health, bioMérieux will unveil its Superbugs education campaign, which is designed to raise awareness of emerging healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) and how consumers and industry professionals can prevent their spread. HAIs, including MRSA and C. difficile, pose an increasing threat to public health and affect more than 1.7 million Americans each year. bioMérieux’s Odyssey tour will also feature food testing instruments, including the VITEK® 2, which help ensure a safe food supply and rapidly identify food-borne illnesses such as Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli.

“bioMérieux is dedicated to offering automated diagnostics solutions as well as the hands-on training and education necessary to help improve public health,” said Herb Steward, executive vice president and general manager for bioMérieux North America. “This is especially timely given recent issues with food safety and the growing issue of antibiotic resistance. The bioMérieux Odyssey will feature diagnostic solutions that help identify infections and empower industry professionals to quickly make the best decisions possible.”

The Odyssey will feature three of bioMérieux’s newest products: PNA FISH™, TEMPO® and DiversiLab™. PNA FISH provides rapid identification of bacteria and yeast species from positive blood cultures in hours instead of days. TEMPO offers enumeration of quality indicators, which are vital in determining overall product hygiene. DiversiLab serves the clinical and industrial markets, tracking HAIs and providing quality control for food safety.

The bioMérieux Odyssey embraces an educational component that includes training, presentations and Professional Achievement in Continuing Education (PACE) credits. PACE credits will be offered on a variety of topics from recent bioMérieux Knowledge Forums. Topics include antibiotic stewardship, microbial genotyping, data driven drug decisions and molecular testing for your lab. The onboard laptop lounge allows attendees to arrange immediate email delivery of PACE credit approvals. For more information, visit http://www.biomerieux­usa.com/odyssey.

About bioMérieux

A world leader in the field of in vitro diagnostics for 45 years, bioMérieux is present in more than 150 countries through 38 subsidiaries and a large network of distributors. In 2007, revenues reached €1.063 billion with 84% of sales outside of France.

bioMérieux provides diagnostic solutions (reagents, instruments, software), which determine the source of disease and contamination to improve patient health and ensure consumer safety. Our products are used for diagnosing infectious diseases and providing high medical value results for cardiovascular emergencies and cancer screening and monitoring. 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.

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