ZENECA

COMPANY INFORMATION:
Zeneca was formed in 1993, following the demerger of ICI's bioscience operations. It is organised into two business sectors: pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The company's strategy is to grow its business by the introduction of new products and by the expansion and maintenance of existing products. Zeneca Agrochemicals is organised into five operational regions: North America; Latin America; Asia-Pacific; Europe; and the rest of the world.

In February 1998, the company completed the acquisition of ISK's world chlorothalonil and fluazinam businesses (see below). In 1999, Zeneca opened a research centre in Italy to develop new active ingredients for use in Mediterranean crops

In 1999, shareholders agreed to a merger with Swedish pharmaceutical company, Astra to form a new company called AstraZeneca, with the agrochemical division known as Zeneca Agrochemicals.

Zeneca's principal agrochemical R&D facilities are situated at Jealott's Hill (UK) and the Western Research Centre (US). It also has a number of field stations around the world. It has many manufacturing sites including: Belgium; Brazil; Greece; India; Japan; Spain; Thailand; the UK; and the US.

In December, 1999, it was announced that AstraZeneca's agrochemical business and Novartis's crop protection and seed businesses were to be merged to create Syngenta. The process is expected to be completed by the second half of 2000 with an extraordinary general meeting in October to allow shareholders to vote on the transaction.

SYNGENTA - based on 1998 figures, the new company will lead the world agrochemical market with sales of $6,900 million and will be positioned third in the seed market behind DuPont and Monsanto with sales of $1,000 million. Novartis will hold 61% of Syngenta, AstraZeneca will hold 39%. The new company will have headquarters in Basle, Switzerland.

Novartis's animal health business and AstraZeneca's 50% holding in the seed company, Advanta, are not included in the transaction. The designated chairman of Syngenta is Heinz Imhof of Novartis. The merger is expected to result in annual cost savings of $525 million; this will include an anticipated reduction of the global headcount of around 3,000 employees out of a total of 19,200.

Syngenta is expected to command approximately 25% of the global agrochemical market with crop protection products dominating the sales. Herbicides will account for 44.2%, fungicides for 21.4% and insecticides 14.5% of the $7,947 million sales. The company's major products will include Bicep Magnum (S-metolachlor), Dual Magnum (S-metolachlor+atrazine), Fusilade (fluazifop-P-butyl), Surpass (acetochlor), Topic (Clodinafop), Touchdown (glyphosate-trimesium), Gramoxone (paraquat), Amistar (azoxystrobin), Flint (trifloxystrobin), Bravo (chlorthalonil), Ridomil Gold (metalaxyl-M), Score (difenoconazole), Tilt (propiconazole), Curacron (profenofos), Force (tefluthrin), Karate (lamda-cyhalothrin), Vertimec (abamectin), Celest, Maxim (fludioxonil).

The major R&D centres are currently located at Jeallot's Hill (UK), Richmond and La Jolla (California, USA), Research Triangle Park (N. Carolina, USA), Leiden (Netherlands), Basle and Stein (Switzerland). In addition, there are research stations at 14 sites in Europe, 13 in the USA, 11 in Asia-Pacific region, 3 in Latin America and 1 in Africa. No decisions have yet been announced on which sites are to remain in Syngenta

The status of GM lines in Syngenta is not yet clear but at present, they would represent only 2% of total sales with Novartis being a major supplier of conventional seeds. Syngenta's strategy in the uncertain climate surrounding GM technology will be to supply what customers want and retain the flexibility to adapt to market demand.

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FUTURE DISEASEPROJECTS:
Zeneca has a second generation strobilurin fungicide (proposed name picoxystrobin, D0086) in its pipeline. This product is expected to be launched in Europe in 2002.