Bayer acquires Icon Genetics AG

Lev­erkusen, Ger­many Bay­er Inno­va­tion GmbH (BIG), a sub­sidiary of the Bay­er Group engaged in devel­op­ing new fields of busi­ness, has acquired Icon Genet­ics AG, a biotech com­pa­ny head­quar­tered in Munich, Ger­many. Icon Genet­ics dis­cov­ers inno­v­a­tive meth­ods for the devel­op­ment and use of engi­neered plants. Bay­er and Icon Genet­ics are already coop­er­at­ing on research.

The acqui­si­tion will strength­en Bay­ers activ­i­ties aimed at pro­duc­ing spe­cif­ic phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sub­stances in plants (plant-made phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals, or PMPs). This tech­nol­o­gy uti­lizes the nat­ur­al pro­tein pro­duc­tion process­es in plants as a way of pro­duc­ing ther­a­peu­ti­cal­ly active sub­stances. The par­ties have agreed not to dis­close any details of the acqui­si­tion. Clos­ing of the trans­ac­tion took place on Jan­u­ary 9, 2006.

Icon Genet­ics, estab­lished in 1999 and financed by ven­ture cap­i­tal from IBG Beteili­gungs­ge­sellschaft Sach­sen-Anhalt mbH, CFH GmbH, KfW-Banken­gruppe and BioM AG, has sites in Halle and Munich. The com­pa­ny is engaged in devel­op­ing process­es for the biotech­no­log­i­cal pro­duc­tion of bio­phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals and oth­er high-val­ue prod­ucts in plants. The results of this activ­i­ty are reflect­ed in a total of more than 40 patents grant­ed or applied for.

Bay­er Inno­va­tion GmbH (BIG), head­quar­tered in Düs­sel­dorf, is a whol­ly owned sub­sidiary of Bay­er AG. BIG eval­u­ates and devel­ops new fields of busi­ness for the Bay­er Group that are in line with Bayer’s core com­pe­ten­cies of health care, nutri­tion and high-tech mate­ri­als and com­ple­ment its cur­rent key areas of inno­va­tion and busi­ness.