The leader of this behemoth, which he founded in Nantes in 1987 and which now employs 55,000 people, has been led with his teams to carry out millions of PCR tests since the emergence of Covid-19.

In the middle of the fifth wave, he deplores a delay in the ignition of the strategies put in place internationally.

“From the moment a new virus emerged in China, the only solution to avoid or slow down the first wave was to test massively”, he assures.

“Unfortunately, agencies in the United States and in several countries in Europe wanted to centralize the authorization of tests too much. From the start of the pandemic, we had done our own tests, but some governments did not allow us to use them” , says the leader during an interview with AFP in the Brussels offices of the company.

Even today, the situation varies, regrets the 58-year-old boss, while in France the queues are getting longer in front of pharmacies.

“In the United States, you can order PCR tests online, test someone in the family who has symptoms and have the results the next day,” he points out.

The biotechnology revolution

"If we let people do the swabs for the PCR tests themselves, you'll have maybe 3 or 5% of them doing them badly. But if 95% of them do them well and that allows to triple the screening capacity with very sensitive PCR tests, it is much better than using rapid antigen tests which miss 50% of asymptomatic cases”, he judges.

Covid-19 - via tests or services provided to biotechs engaged in treatments or vaccines - brought more than one billion euros in additional turnover to society in 2021. Accelerator effect?

Eurofins joined the closed circle of the CAC 40 on the Paris Stock Exchange this fall.

A mobile sampling unit for testing for Covid-19 installed on Pentrez beach in Saint-Nic, Finistère, August 12, 2020 Fred TANNEAU AFP / Archives

However, Gilles Martin says he is eager to return to what makes him vibrate.

“We generated turnover but it is transitory”, declares the entrepreneur.

"Our core business is innovation."

Because a revolution has begun in the life sciences, explains Gilles Martin, who created his first start-ups during his studies at the Centrale engineering school.

"Biotechnology will change the second half of the 21st century: we won't live the same way, we won't produce our food the same way, we won't reproduce the same way," he predicts.

"They can do it"

Eurofins is present in several areas, including analyzes for the food industry.

This is also where the company started, since Gilles Martin began by developing a process for detecting sugar in wine developed by his parents, both researchers.

A few decades later, the company's turnover exceeded 5 billion euros (in 2020).

"It's a sign that French companies can do it," said Gilles Martin, while many voices were raised to criticize the lack of funding in France, and the failure of French research to develop a vaccine.

An employee at work in a Eurofins laboratory in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, on December 10, 2020 ROBIN VAN LONKHUIJSEN ANP/AFP/Archives

The entrepreneur, however, set up the headquarters of his company in Luxembourg a few years ago, defending himself for tax reasons: "We pay our taxes in the countries where we operate. We are above all an international group."

Eurofins still has a strong presence in Nantes, where the group employs more than a thousand people.

© 2022 AFP