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Biotech / Medical : Monsanto Co. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Professor Dotcomm who wrote (1912)	4/9/1999 9:23:00 AM
From: jopawa	Respond to of 2539

Friday April 9, 8:55 am Eastern Time Company Press Release SOURCE: Great Lakes Chemical Corporation Great Lakes and Monsanto Agree to Great Lakes Acquisition of NSC Technologies Technology Significantly Enhances Fine Chemical Capabilities INDIANAPOLIS, April 9 /PRNewswire/ -- Great Lakes Chemical Corporation (NYSE: GLK - news) and Monsanto (NYSE: MTC - news) today announced that they have signed a definitive agreement for Great Lakes to purchase Monsanto's pharmaceutical intermediates business known as NSC Technologies LLC (NSCT) for $125 million, subject to regulatory approval. The transaction, expected to be completed during the second quarter, also includes the basic intellectual property associated with unnatural amino acid technology for the production of chirally pure products for the pharmaceutical industry. Mark Bulriss, president and chief executive officer, stated, ''Acquiring NSCT represents an important step in our ongoing effort to become a preferred supplier in the rapidly expanding pharmaceutical intermediates and bulk active market. This acquisition significantly broadens Great Lakes' capabilities to supply products and services to the pharmaceutical industry while also providing the company access to valuable state-of-the-art technology. At the same time, it enhances our position to compete at the early stages of product development in the pharmaceutical pipeline.'' NSCT currently develops, manufactures and sells chiral pharmaceutical intermediates and select bulk actives to pharmaceutical companies. NSCT's core chiral expertise in unnatural amino acids represents a broad technology platform from which it develops novel, high value-added intermediates and bulk actives for anti-viral, cardiovascular and oncology therapeutic drugs. NSCT is unique in that it utilizes an integrated approach in combining biologic and chemical expertise in molecular development. The company has invested in and developed significant technical capabilities in both bio-sciences (molecular biology, genetic engineering, enzymology and fermentation science) and chemistry (asymmetric hydrogenation and organic synthesis) and enjoys a strong patent and know-how position in these capabilities. NSCT will become an integral part of Great Lakes' Fine Chemicals group, which is an important segment of the company's fast growing Performance Chemicals business unit. Lou Maresca, executive vice president and president of Performance Chemicals, added, ''The acquisition is part of our strategy that significantly broadens our capabilities to service the pharmaceutical industry with leading-edge, value-added technology. Today, we are able to offer life science companies a more complete line of innovative products, services and cGMP capabilities than ever before. In addition, Great Lakes with its strong process and manufacturing capabilities, is in an excellent position to reduce new product development time and help drive NSCT's technologies to commercialization allowing both our customers and ourselves to benefit from longer product life cycles.'' Bulriss concluded, ''The NSCT acquisition underscores our goal to expand Great Lakes' operations in high growth, high valued-added markets. I believe that the acquisition, as well as other growth initiatives currently under review, will position the company to deliver sustainable growth and superior shareholder returns over the long-term.'' This news release contains forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties regarding the consummation of this transaction. These include, among others, satisfaction of conditions to closing the transaction, including determination by regulatory authorities and other risks and uncertainties that affect the company's operations as discussed in Great Lakes Chemical Corporation's Annual Report on Form 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Accordingly, there is no assurance the company's expectations will be realized. Great Lakes Chemical Corporation is the world's leading producer of certain specialty chemicals for such applications as flame retardants, polymer stabilizers, fire extinguishants, water treatment, as well as a growing line of performance and fine chemicals for the life sciences industry. The stock of the company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange. SOURCE: Great Lakes Chemical Corporation

To: Professor Dotcomm who wrote (1912)	4/9/1999 1:51:00 PM
From: Dan Spillane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2539

Even more so towards the point of the UK investigation. Only if you are a monopoly can you "seize" on certain openings, which you yourself can also help open. This could also help explain some of the press events in the UK, since any connections between the supermarkets and papers are unknown. In the UK, it is indeed still unknown why certain papers printed certain headline stories which were completely incorrect. These were attributed to environmentalist groups, but how do we really know if there weren't any other connections? I can cite several examples, if you'd like...a few of them are already posted in this discussion group. By the way, I've been to France. Love the baguettes and desserts, but everything else is pretty bad. (you said) Or perhaps a subplot with the supermarkets sensing an opening which they seized? As an aside it would seem from the article that French food is only 9% more expensive than here. If so, I would rate it better value.