DowDuPont completes FMC acquisition, bolsters excipient biz
DowDupont has completed an asset swap, adding FMC’s health and nutrition business (except for the Omega-3 business) in exchange for a portion of DuPont's Crop Protection business and $1.6bn.
DuPont first announced the deal in March, ahead of its planned $130bn megamerger with Dow Chemical which itself was completed on September 1.
And speaking on the first financial conference call as a merged entity last week, DowDuPont CEO Edward Breen said the combination of FMC’s assets with Dow Pharma and Food put the firm in a strong position in the pharmaceutical excipient space.
“Our portfolio now has one of the broadest pharma offerings to serve the growing excipients industry. We can now provide customers with capabilities to blend and integrate requirements for controlled release, binding and solubility, and emerging needs,” he told investors.
“Our new pharma excipients business unit created from the integration of Dow and FMC also gives us a stronger position in the healthcare market when combined with our other initiatives in medical silicones, medical packaging and emerging bio-based products.”
He added further information on DowDuPont’s pharma strategy will be shared in the future “as we continue to advance and implement our plans.”
For the third quarter 2017, the firm’s Nutrition & Biosciences division (part of a rejig under the specialty products business, which now includes pharma) remained relatively flat year-on-year at $1.47bn. The result only includes one month of DuPont earnings, and none of FMC's.
