Bayer and Monsanto said on Tuesday they would spend at least half of their agriculture research and development budget in the United States over the next six years, following a meeting with President-elect Donald Trump last week.
The two companies, which are awaiting approval of their agreed $66 billion deal from Trump’s incoming administration, issued a joint statement after Trump’s spokesman said Bayer had pledged to boost U.S. investments and jobs.
They said they expect to spend a total of about $16 billion worldwide on agriculture R&D over the next six years, in line with an annual 2.5 billion-euro ($2.7 billion) pro-forma budget they announced at the time of the merger agreement in September.
The German drugs and agriculture group and the U.S. seeds giant also said on Tuesday they would create “several thousand new high-tech, well-paying jobs after integration is complete”.
Trump’s spokesman had said the companies had promised to maintain their more than 9,000 U.S. jobs and add 3,000 new U.S. high-tech positions.
Trump has elicited jobs and investment pledges from several companies including General Motors and Wal-Mart as he prepares to take office on Friday.
By Ludwig Burger
Source: Reuters
The companies will explore opportunities to apply Flagship’s innovative bioplatforms – an ecosystem that currently comprises 41 companies – to scientific challenges in disease areas within cardiometabolic and rare diseases and initiate research programmes based on these.
BD is expanding its long-running partnership with the blood collection company Babson Diagnostics. The two companies have been working together since 2019 on a device that can gather small volumes of blood from the capillaries in the fingertip without requiring any specialized training, and beginning with a focus on supporting primary care in retail settings.
Wednesday, Australian biotech CSL said (PDF) the regulatory review of its $11.7 billion acquisition of Switzerland’s Vifor Pharma will take “a few more months,” suggesting it won’t be able to close the transaction by June 2022 as previously expected.
