Manuel O. Mendez,
bioMérieux Executive Vice President, North American Commercial Operations, since 2010
Professional
Orasure Technologies Inc., Senior Vice President Marketing and Sales, 2009-2010
Thermo Fisher Scientific, Global Sales, Marketing and Business Development Director, Global Chemicals, BioSciences, 2007-2009
Abbott Laboratories, various positions, 1991-2007
Education
BS in biomedical engineering, Boston University;
MBA, Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
Personal
Serves on the Board of Directors at VillageCare, a community-based, not-for-profit organization serving persons living with HIV/AIDS, seniors, and individuals in need of continuing care.
Board member for the Jorge Posada Foundation, a nonprofit organization established by former New York Yankees catcher Jorge Posada and his wife, Laura, in honor of their son and his successful struggle against craniosynostosis.
Enjoys running, biking, tennis, and spending time with his family.
Solutions that bioMérieux offers the clinical lab. There are two areas in particular where we're leading the way in terms of enabling clinical laboratories to most successfully impact patient care. The first is what we refer to as Full Microbiology Lab Automation (FMLA). Years ago, we witnessed the movement of immunochemistry toward integrating more and more automation, and we've been taking what we've learned and applying those principles to microbiology. Automating more of the microbiology lab through instrumentation improves productivity and lab efficiency, eliminating errors and helping labs report results more quickly to clinicians. The second area is our Performance Solutions group. This team is helping labs significantly improve turnaround times, which directly impacts patient care. To go along with this, we've developed a new middleware product called Myla that serves to transcribe and quickly deliver all of the information for physicians, pharmacists and others who make decisions about patient care. This ensures that labs are truly realizing the potential of their instrumentation as well as enhanced workflow efficiencies.
Emerging bioMérieux technologies with revolutionary implications. Automation, combined with workflow, is already revolutionizing the way things are done in the lab. For instance, our PREVI Isola automated plate-streaker develops better colony isolation than hand-streaking. This speeds testing by eliminating the need to re-streak and other common errors that delay results. As we go forward, FMLA will begin to drive further automation. Improved colony isolation will drive the use of automated incubation. The result will be more efficiency and faster turnaround times. Mass spectrometry, I believe, may also transform the way patients will be treated. This technology, now approved for research use only, will provide pathogen identification in minutes rather than hours. Rapid identification will enable clinicians to begin targeted patient therapies sooner, leading to improved outcomes. Another area where we're providing real change is through our development of high-gain clinical assays and diagnostic tests. We've seen that our assay for procalcitonin (PCT) has impacted how institutions diagnose and treat sepsis, leading to lives saved. Our focus is in developing additional high-value clinical assays and offering them in an easy-to-use platform like our VIDAS systems. In this way, we can give clinicians the information they need to implement patient-specific treatments that promise better outcomes.
The company's corporate values. We have four core corporate values at bioMérieux: Customers come first; employees are our greatest asset; we belong to a community; and our shareholders are our partners. These values are born of our focus on improving patient care and our commitment to public health. I believe that my job is to help bring these values to life in a way that resonates both with employees and customers. We introduced a concept called LIVE as one way of bringing our values to life. LIVE stands for Listen, Inspire/Innovate, Value and Empower. It is important to ensure an environment of success to benefit our employees and customers.
The “bioMérieux Goes Green” initiative. The bioMérieux Goes Green initiative directly reflects our core value of community. If we are focused on improving the future of public health, then we must also work to preserve the environment for future generations. We have five key goals as part of the program: to reduce our consumption of non-renewable energy sources; to conserve water through good management of resources; to reduce paper usage in processes, packages and products; to minimize the amount of physical waste produced; and to minimize the amount of CO2 emissions produced. As a healthcare company, we know the effects things like emissions or waste can have on public health, and we are driven to lead by example. For instance, bioMérieux is financing a reforestation project to compensate for greenhouse gas emissions related to employees' air travel. The company has established a partnership with the environmental NGO, SOS Mata Atlantica, whose aim is to protect Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Another example is our in-office adoption of LEAN 5S. It's a process for sorting and organizing the things around you, to get the most out of your resources and significantly reduce waste.
The Jorge Posada Foundation. I have been very proud to be involved in the Foundation. It is an opportunity for me to make a profound difference in the lives of children and families affected by craniosynostosis. The organization provides education about craniosynostosis, which occurs when an infant's fibrous sutures fuse too early, affecting the growth of the brain. We provide support for families impacted by the disease, both through direct financial aid and by creating a network of people who can provide information and healing. I encourage readers to visit http://www.jorgeposadafoundation.org.
