The Mérieux family is an entrepreneurial dynasty from

Lyon Lyon (Franco-Provençal: ''Liyon'') is a city in France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of the French Alps, southeast of Paris, north of Marseille, southwest of Geneva, Switzerland, north ...

, France, owners of the Institut Mérieux holding, founders of companies such as

Sanofi Pasteur Sanofi Pasteur is the vaccines division of the French multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi. Sanofi Pasteur is the largest company in the world devoted entirely to vaccines. It is one of four global producers of the yellow fever vaccin ...

bioMérieux bioMérieux SA is a French multinational biotechnology company founded and headquartered in Marcy-l'Étoile, France, close to Lyon. bioMérieux is present in 44 countries and serves more than 160 countries through a large network of distributo ...

(in vitro diagnostics) and Mérial (veterinary activity), but also of the foundations ''Fondation Merieux, Fondation Marcel-Mérieux'' and ''Fondation Christophe et Rodolphe Mérieux'', of the Jean Mérieux P4 laboratory and of

humanitarian Humanitarianism is an ideology centered on the value of human life, whereby humans practice benevolent treatment and provide assistance to other humans to reduce suffering and improve the conditions of humanity for moral, altruistic, and emotiona ...

organisation Bioforce.

Genealogy

*Marcel Mérieux (1870–1937), ESCIL student in 1891, former assistant to

Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist, pharmacist, and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation, and pasteurization, the last of which wa ...

, founder in 1897 of Mérieux Biological Institute in Lyon (origins of the '' Institut Mérieux'' holding) in 1897 (now part of

) **Jean Mérieux, his elder son. Physician, died at 26 of tuberculosis-related meningitis contracted in the family laboratory. **Charles Mérieux (1907–2001), physician and entrepreneur. Founder of Fondation Marcel-Mérieux, humanitarian organisation Bioforce and '' P4'' laboratory Jean Merieux. ***Jean Mérieux, died in a car accident in 1994. ***Alain Mérieux (born 1938),

doctor of pharmacy A Doctor of Pharmacy (PharmD; Neo-Latin: ''Pharmaciae Doctor'') is a professional doctorate in pharmacy. In some countries, it is a proficient graduate degree to practice the profession of pharmacy or to become a clinical pharmacist. In many co ...

and

entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value in ways that generally entail beyond the minimal amount of risk (assumed by a traditional business), and potentially involving values besides simply economic ones. An entreprene ...

, founder of

. ****Christophe Mérieux (1967–2006),

physician A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the Medical education, study, Med ...

. ****Rodolphe Mérieux (1969–1996), crash victim onboard

TWA Flight 800 Trans World Airlines Flight 800 (known as TW800 or TWA800) was a regularly scheduled international passenger flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States, to Fiumicino Airport in Rome, Italy, with a stopo ...

.EXPLOSION ABOARD T.W.A. FLIGHT 800: VICTIMS;Lives of Beauty and Business, Sports and Scholarship, Youth and Age
/ref> ****Alexandre Mérieux (born 1974), administrator of the bioMérieux group.

Tragedy in the Family

The Mérieux family has been marked by a series of tragic and untimely deaths, raising curiosity. Jean Mérieux, the elder son of Marcel Mérieux, died at just 26 from tuberculosis-related meningitis contracted in the family laboratory. Decades later, in 1994, another Jean Mérieux died in a car accident, adding to the family’s history of misfortune. Two years later, in 1996, Rodolphe Mérieux lost his life in the infamous crash of

. The tragedies continued with the unexpected passing of Christophe Mérieux in 2006, leaving the family with yet another untimely loss.

Sources

Lyon - La malédiction des Mérieux (Le Point)
Businesspeople from Lyon Businesspeople in the pharmaceutical industry French business families {{France-business-bio-stub