Novartis Sells Flint to Bayer

23 October 2000 00:00  [Source: ICB Americas]

Novartis is selling its Flint strobilurin fungicide product line to Bayer for SFr 1.3 billion ($760 million). The line is projected to have blockbuster sales potential of around $250 million per year. The deal also includes the sale of European Union marketing rights to products based on Flint's active ingredient cyproconazole, an azole fungicide.

Flint, a second-generation strobilurin with a broad spectrum of applications, is already registered in 35 countries, including the US, UK and Germany. Its global launch is expected to be completed by 2003.

The sale of Flint, which has been approved by the European Commission with Bayer as the purchaser, was a condition of the Commission's approval of the planned merger between the crop protection businesses of Novartis and AstraZeneca to form Syngenta. Neither the merger nor the Flint acquisition by Bayer has yet been approved by the US Federal Trade Commission.

"The sales potential of the Flint product line will be further enhanced by new product combinations, especially with compounds from our own pipeline," says Jochen Wulff, general manager of Bayer's crop protection business group.

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