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The Monsanto Company (/mɒnˈsæntoʊ/) was an American agrochemical and agricultural biotechnology corporation founded in 1901 and headquartered in Creve Coeur, Missouri. Monsanto's best known product is Roundup, a glyphosate-based herbicide, developed in the 1970s. Later, the company became a major producer of genetically engineered crops. In 2018, the company ranked 199th on the Fortune 500 of the largest United States corporations by revenue.[2] Monsanto's roles in agricultural changes, biotechnology products, lobbying of government agencies, and roots as a chemical company have resulted in controversies. The company once manufactured controversial products such as the insecticide DDT, PCBs, Agent Orange, and recombinant bovine growth hormone. Its seed patenting model was criticized as biopiracy and a threat to biodiversity[9][10] as invasive species.[11] In September 2016, German chemical company Bayer announced its intent to acquire Monsanto for US$66 billion in an all-cash deal.[12] After gaining US and EU regulatory approval, the sale was completed on June 7, 2018. The name Monsanto was no longer used, but Monsanto's previous product brand names were maintained.[13][14][15] In June 2020, Bayer agreed to pay numerous settlements in lawsuits involving ex-Monsanto products Roundup, PCBs and Dicamba.[16] History Further information: Timeline of Monsanto "Pre-Pharmacia" Monsanto Monsanto Company Inc. MonsantoCompany.png Industry Chemicals, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals Founded 1901; 122 years ago St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. Founder John Francis Queeny Fate Acquired by Pharmacia & Upjohn[17] Headquarters United States 1901 to WWII In 1901 Monsanto was founded in St. Louis, Missouri, as a chemical company.[18] The founder was John Francis Queeny, who at age 42 was a 30‑year veteran of the nascent pharmaceutical industry.[19] He funded the firm with his own money and capital from a soft drink distributor. He used for the company name, the maiden name of his wife, Olga Méndez Monsanto, who was a scioness of the Sephardic Jewish Monsanto family.[20] The company's first products were commodity food additives, such as the artificial sweetener saccharin, caffeine and vanillin.[21]:[22][23][24][25] Monsanto expanded to Europe in 1919 in a partnership with Graesser's Chemical Works at Cefn Mawr, Wales. The venture produced vanillin, aspirin and its raw ingredient salicylic acid, and later rubber processing chemicals. In the 1920s, Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals such as sulfuric acid and PCBs. Queeny's son Edgar Monsanto Queeny took over the company in 1928. In 1926 the company founded and incorporated a town called Monsanto in Illinois (now known as Sauget). It was formed to provide minimal regulation and low taxes for Monsanto plants at a time when local jurisdictions had most of the responsibility for environmental rules. It was renamed in honor of Leo Sauget, its first village president.[26] In 1935, Monsanto bought the Swann Chemical Company in Anniston, Alabama, and thereby entered the business of producing PCBs.[27][28][29] In 1936, Monsanto acquired Thomas & Hochwalt Laboratories in Dayton, Ohio, to acquire the expertise of Charles Allen Thomas and Carroll A. Hochwalt. The acquisition became Monsanto's Central Research Department.[30]:340–341 Thomas spent the rest of his career at Monsanto, serving as President (1951–1960) and Board Chair (1960–1965). He retired in 1970.[31] In 1943, Thomas was called to a meeting in Washington, D.C., with Leslie Groves, commander of the Manhattan Project, and James Conant, president of Harvard University and chairman of the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC).[32] They urged Thomas to become co-director of the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos with Robert Oppenheimer, but Thomas was reluctant to leave Dayton and Monsanto.[32] He joined the NDRC, and Monsanto's Central Research Department began to conduct related research.[33]:vii To that end, Monsanto operated the Dayton Project, and later Mound Laboratories, and assisted in the development of the first nuclear weapons.[32] Post-WWII In 1946, Monsanto developed and marketed "All" laundry detergent, which they sold to Lever Brothers in 1957.[34] In 1947, its styrene factory was destroyed in the Texas City Disaster.[35] In 1949, Monsanto acquired American Viscose Corporation from Courtaulds. In 1954, Monsanto partnered with German chemical giant Bayer to form Mobay and market polyurethanes in the United States.[36] Monsanto began manufacturing DDT in 1944, along with some 15 other companies. This insecticide was used to kill malaria-transmitting mosquitoes, but it was banned in the United States in 1972 due to its harmful environmental impacts. In 1977, Monsanto stopped producing PCBs; Congress banned PCB production two years later.[37][38] 1960s and 1970s In the mid‑1960s, William Standish Knowles and his team invented a way to selectively synthesize enantiomers via asymmetric hydrogenation. This was the first method for the catalytic production of pure chiral compounds.[39] Knowles' team designed the "first industrial process to chirally synthesize an important compound"—L‑dopa, which is used to treat Parkinson's disease.[40] In 2001, Knowles and Ryōji Noyori won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. In the mid-1960s, chemists at Monsanto developed the Monsanto process for making acetic acid, which until 2000 was the most widely used production method. In 1964, Monsanto chemists invented AstroTurf (initially ChemGrass).[41] In the 1960s and 1970s, Monsanto was a producer of Agent Orange for United States Armed Forces operations in Vietnam, and settled out of court in a lawsuit brought by veterans in 1984.[42]:6 In 1968, it became the first company to start mass production of (visible) light-emitting diodes (LEDs), using gallium arsenide phosphide. From 1968 to 1970, sales doubled every few months. Their products (discrete LEDs and seven-segment numeric displays) became industry standards. The primary markets then were electronic calculators, digital watches and digital clocks.[43] Monsanto became a pioneer of optoelectronics in the 1970s. Between 1968 and 1974, the company sponsored the PGA Tour event in Pensacola, Florida, which was renamed the Monsanto Open. In 1974, Harvard University and Monsanto signed a 10-year research grant to support the cancer research of Judah Folkman, which became the largest such arrangement ever made; medical inventions arising from that research were the first for which Harvard allowed its faculty to submit patent application.[44][45] 1980 to 1989: Becoming an agribiotech Monsanto scientists were among the first to genetically modify a plant cell, publishing their results in 1983.[3] Five years later the company conducted the first field tests of genetically modified crops. Increasing involvement in agricultural biotechnology dates from the installment of Richard Mahoney as Monsanto's CEO in 1983.[18] This involvement increased under the leadership of Robert Shapiro, appointed CEO in 1995, leading ultimately to the disposition of product lines unrelated to agriculture.[18] In 1985, Monsanto acquired G.D. Searle & Company, a life sciences company that focused on pharmaceuticals, agriculture and animal health. In 1993, its Searle division filed a patent application for Celebrex,[46][47] which in 1998 became the first selective COX‑2 inhibitor to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).[48] Celebrex became a blockbuster drug and was often mentioned as a key reason for Pfizer's acquisition of Monsanto's pharmaceutical business in 2002.[49] 1990 to 1999: Moving into the seed market & industry consolidation In 1994, Monsanto introduced a recombinant version of bovine somatotropin, brand-named Posilac.[50] Monsanto later sold this business to Eli Lilly and Company. In 1996, Monsanto purchased Agracetus, the biotechnology company that had generated the first transgenic cotton, soybeans, peanuts and other crops, and from which Monsanto had been licensing technology since 1991.[51] In 1997, Monsanto divested Solutia, a company created to carry off the responsibility for Monsanto's PCB business and associated liabilities, along with some related organic chemical production. Monsanto first entered the maize seed business when it purchased 40% of Dekalb in 1996; it purchased the remainder of the corporation in 1998.[52] In 1997, the company first published an annual report citing Monsanto's Law, a biotechnological take on Moore's Law, indicating its future directions and exponential growth in the use of biotechnology. In the same year, Californian GMO company Calgene was acquired.[53][54] In 1998, Monsanto purchased Cargill's international seed business, which gave it access to sales and distribution facilities in 51 countries.[52] In 2005, it finalized the purchase of Seminis Inc, a leading global vegetable and fruit seed company, for $1.4 billion.[55] This made it the world's largest conventional seed company. In 1999, Monsanto sold off NutraSweet Co.[18] In December of the same year, Monsanto agreed to merge with Pharmacia & Upjohn, in a deal valuing the transaction at $27 billion.[56][18] The agricultural division became a wholly owned subsidiary of the "new" Pharmacia; Monsanto's medical research division, which included products such as Celebrex.[57]