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

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (2052)	5/21/1999 3:22:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2539

FOCUS-Genetic tomatoes hijack AstraZeneca big day Friday May 21, 12:55 pm Eastern Time (Rewrites with details from annual meeting) By Jonathan Birt, European pharmaceuticals correspondent LONDON, May 21 (Reuters) - Genetic food protesters hijacked AstraZeneca Plc's (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: AZN.L) first annual meeting and a rosy set of sales figures on Friday, rushing the stage where the board of the new Anglo-Swedish group was assembled. Earlier around 15 demonstrators from a group calling themselves Genetic Engineering Network, some disguised as giant tomatoes, had invaded the ground floor of the company's head office near London's Hyde Park. At least one person was arrested. Several share-owning protesters were manhandled out of the annual meeting at the Royal Lancaster Hotel. Two attempted to seize a microphone from outgoing Zeneca chairman Sydney Lipworth, while a third handcuffed herself to a chair in the ballroom where the meeting was being held. The incidents overshadowed what should have been a triumphant day for AstraZeneca, which announced an 18 percent rise in pharmaceutical turnover in the first quarter of the year, buoyed by a 24 percent gain in sales of ulcer drug Losec, currently the best selling medicine in the world. A shareholder meeting in front of 4,000 Swedish shareholders at the Stockholm Globe Arena on Wednesday had passed without incident. The new company -- by some measures the world's biggest drugs combine and the third-largest agrochemicals group -- has found itself thrust uncomfortably into the spotlight because of a growing row over genetically modified foods in Britain and other European countries. Zeneca pioneered the world's first genetically-engineered tomatoes, which have been used in tomato paste sold on an experimental basis in some UK supermarkets. It is working on a number of other products, including potatoes which will not sprout in storage and seeds resistant to certain types of disease and herbicides. Questioning at the meeting was dominated by ActionAid, which runs a number of aid projects in the developing world, and the World Development Movement (WDM). Both distanced themselves from invasion of the platform and AstraZeneca's head office. The two groups fear the move by companies like AstraZeneca, DuPont (NYSE:DD - news) and Monsanto (NYSE:MTC - news) to buy up seed companies will force poor farmers to buy expensive seeds and chemicals from monopoly sellers. ''Our concern is that this genetic technology will be to the benefit of the companies and not to the benefit fo the farmers -- quite the reverse,'' Barry Coates of WDM told Reuters. ''Companies are now being forced not just to say they are ethical, but to show they are as well. Zeneca hasn't quite got the hang of that.'' ''We are very open and willing to discuss anything with anyone,'' Michael Pragnell, chief executive of Zeneca Agrochemicals, told shareholders. ''There are real questions that need to be taken seriously and need to be answered -- we believe this technology does offer very significant long-term benefit to the consumer and to the farmer.'' Ironically, while drug sales rose sharply in the first three months of the eyar, sales of agrochemcial products dropped three percent, and the group said there was little sign of improvement in the second quarter. Friday's incidents and sales figures may sharpen some minds on the new AstraZeneca board about the wisdom of staying in agrochemicals, which accounts for only 10 percent of operating profit at the new group. The group's new Chief Executive Tom McKillop, a pharmaceutical research man by trade, and its powerful Swedish board members led by Chairman Percy Barnevik are likley to have little emotional attachment to Zeneca's agrochemicals wing, particularly if it starts to prove troublesome.