DuPont to Invest $2.6 Billion in Life Sciences

DuPont has announced that it will acquire Merck & Co.'s interest in the companies' 50/50 joint venture, The DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company, for $2.6 billion. The transaction is expected to close in July.

DuPont Merck, formed in 1991, will become an integral part of DuPont, operating as DuPont Pharmaceuticals after the acquisition. It will be a key component of DuPont's strategy to make life sciences its centerpiece for growth.

"This action will enable us to more fully integrate our materials and life sciences research platforms," said Charles O. Holliday, Jr., DuPont president and CEO. "By capitalizing on considerable synergies at the research level in genomics, biology, chemistry and biotechnology, we will be able to accelerate the discovery of new drugs, crop protection chemicals and enhanced grains. This reinforces our intent to offer the full range of life sciences products and technologies."

DuPont Merck's product pipeline includes compounds at all stages of development. These range from Sustiva, a member of a new class of HIV and AIDS drugs, currently in final clinical trials prior to filing a new drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to promising new drugs for the treatment of thrombosis, Alzheimer's and depression. Some of DuPont Merck's best-known commercial drugs are Coumadin, the leading oral anticoagulant; Sinemet/CR, the leading treatment for Parkinson's disease; ReVia, a treatment for alcohol dependency; and Cardiolite, the leading heart-imaging agent.

DuPont and Merck will continue their marketing partnership for Cozaar and Hyzaar, the first drugs in a new class for the treatment of hypertension. In addition, DuPont and Merck will continue a research collaboration aimed at discovering and developing a new class of blood clot-preventing compounds called glycoprotein IIb/IIIa platelet blockers. The companies will continue to share marketing rights to Sustiva (to be marketed by Merck as Stocrin outside the United States, Canada and certain European countries), that has proven useful in combination therapies, such as with Merck's protease inhibitor, Crixivan.

DuPont Merck, based in Wilmington, DE, had $1.3 billion in sales in 1997.

Edited by Beth Brindle

For more information: Susan Gaffney, DuPont, 1007 Market Street, Wilmington, DE 19898. Tel: 302-774-2698.