biology

Merial

Merial is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Merial rather than just read about it. In short: Merial was a multinational animal health company in Lyon, France. It was founded in 1997 as a joint venture between Merck & Co. and Sanofi-Aventis.

Key takeaways

Merial belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Merial to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Merial from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Merial was a multinational animal health company in Lyon, France. It was founded in 1997 as a joint venture between Merck & Co. and Sanofi-Aventis. In January 2017, Merial was acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim and merged with Boehringer Ingelheim's existing animal health assets.

Overview In August 1997, Merial started as a joint venture between the animal health subsidiaries of Merck & Co. (MSD AgVet) and Sanofi-Aventis (Rhône-Mérieux). Merial became the animal health division of Sanofi, when Sanofi bought out Merck's 50% share of the joint venture. On December 30, 2016 Boehringer Ingelheim completed a swap of their OTC business for Sanofi's animal health business. Merial is now owned by Boehringer Ingelheim and combined with their animal health business, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, to form Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health. Merial produces many products and vaccines for domestic pets, farm animals and wildlife. Merial has about 6,900 employees and is present in more than 150 countries in the world. Their sales in 2015 were about €2.5 billion. Some of Merial's most popular products are Frontline, Heartgard, NexGard, Ivomec, PureVax and Previcox. In October 2009, Merial announced it was investing 70 million US$ at its poultry vaccines plant in Nanchang Hi-tech Development Zone, China. On March 9, 2010, Sanofi-Aventis announced it had exercised an option to combine Merial with Intervet/Schering Plough, the animal health business of Merck. The new joint venture would be equally owned by Merck and Sanofi-Aventis. On March 22, 2011, they announced the mutual termination of their agreement to form a new animal health joint venture. In 2017, Merial merged with Boehringer Ingelheim.

Investigations Merial was investigated in connection with a 2007 United Kingdom foot-and-mouth outbreak, after a strain of foot-and-mouth disease alleged to have been sourced from one of their research facilities was found at Pirbright, a farm in Surrey, England, in August 2007. The investigators concluded that "release was most likely due to escape of live virus from the drainage system that connects the vaccine production plant to the sodium hydroxide treatment tanks on another part of the Pirbright site." The two independent inquiries found that Merial complied with all regulations and committed no breaches of biosecurity. In 2016, the NOAH Code of Practice Committee found Merial Animal Health to be in breach of 2 out of 4 items under complaint. This related to the promotion of NexGard Spectra® to the veterinary profession by both account managers and technical teams via telephone conversations and webinars from February 2016 onwards.

References

External links Official Website

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Merial

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Merial claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Merial before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Merial ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Merial

In research: Merial appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Merial in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Merial is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 2017 mergers and acquisitions, Boehringer Ingelheim, Companies based in Duluth, Georgia, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Merial outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Merial in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Merial means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Merial out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Merial in simple terms?

Merial was a multinational animal health company in Lyon, France. It was founded in 1997 as a joint venture between Merck & Co. and Sanofi-Aventis.

Why does Merial matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Merial?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Merial.