The Monsanto Company () 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.
Monsanto was one of four groups to introduce genes into plants in 1983, and was among the first to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops in 1987. It was one of the top-ten U.S. chemical companies until it divested most of its chemical businesses between 1997 and 2002, through a process of mergers and spin-offs that focused the company on biotechnology.
Monsanto was one of the first companies to apply the biotechnology industry business model to agriculture, using techniques developed by biotech drug companies. In this business model, companies recoup R&D expenses by exploiting biological patents.
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.
In September 2016, German chemical company Bayer announced its intent to acquire Monsanto for US$66 billion in an all-cash deal. After gaining U.S. 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. In June 2020, Bayer agreed to pay numerous settlements in lawsuits involving ex-Monsanto products Roundup, PCBs and Dicamba.
History
"Pre-Pharmacia" Monsanto
1901 to WWII
In 1901, Monsanto was founded in St. Louis, Missouri, as a chemical company. The founder was John Francis Queeny, who, at age 42, was a 30‑year veteran of the nascent pharmaceutical industry. He funded the firm with his own money and capital from a soft drink distributor. He named the company after his wife's maiden name, Olga Méndez Monsanto, who was an heir of the Monsanto family.
The company's first products were commodity food additives, such as the artificial sweetener saccharin, caffeine and vanillin.
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.
In 1935, Monsanto bought the Swann Chemical Company in Anniston, Alabama, and thereby entered the business of producing PCBs.
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. Thomas spent the rest of his career at Monsanto, serving as President (1951–1960) and Board Chair (1960–1965). He retired in 1970. 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). 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. To that end, Monsanto operated the Dayton Project, and later Mound Laboratories, and assisted in the development of the first nuclear weapons. In 1947, its styrene factory was destroyed in the Texas City Disaster. 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.
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. Knowles' team designed the "first industrial process to chirally synthesize an important compound"—L‑dopa, which is used to treat Parkinson's disease. 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).
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. 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. 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.
1980 to 1989: Becoming an agribiotech company
Monsanto scientists were among the first to genetically modify a plant cell, publishing their results in 1983. which in 1998 became the first selective COX‑2 inhibitor to be approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Celebrex became a blockbuster drug and was often mentioned as a key reason for Pfizer's acquisition of Monsanto's pharmaceutical business in 2002.
1990 to 1999: Moving into the seed market & industry consolidation
In 1994, Monsanto introduced a recombinant version of bovine somatotropin, brand-named Posilac. 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.
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. 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. In 1998, Monsanto purchased Cargill's international seed business, which gave it access to sales and distribution facilities in 51 countries. This made it the world's largest conventional seed company.
In 1999, Monsanto sold off NutraSweet Co. The agricultural division became a wholly owned subsidiary of the "new" Pharmacia; Monsanto's medical research division, which included products such as Celebrex.
"Pre-Pharmacia" Monsanto overview
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"Post-Pharmacia" Monsanto
2000 to 2009: Birth of the "new" Monsanto
In 2000, Pharmacia spun off its agro-biotech subsidiary into a new company, focused on four key agricultural crops—soybeans, maize, wheat and cotton. Monsanto agreed to indemnify Pharmacia against potential liabilities from judgments against Solutia. As a result, the new Monsanto continued to be a party to numerous lawsuits over the prior Monsanto. Pharmacia was bought by Pfizer in 2003.
In 2005, Monsanto acquired Emergent Genetics and its Stoneville and NexGen cotton brands. Emergent was the third-largest U.S. cotton seed company, with about 12% of the U.S. market. Monsanto's goal was to obtain "a strategic cotton germplasm and traits platform".
Also in 2005, Monsanto purchased Seminis, the California-based world leader in vegetable seed production, for $1.4 billion. Seminis developed new vegetable varieties using advanced cross-pollination methods. Monsanto indicated that Seminis would continue with non-GM development, while not ruling out GM in the longer term.
In June 2007, Monsanto purchased Delta and Pine Land Company, a major cotton seed breeder, for $1.5 billion. As a condition for approval from the Department of Justice, Monsanto was obligated to divest its Stoneville cotton business, which it sold to Bayer, and to divest its NexGen cotton business, which it sold to Americot. Monsanto also exited the pig-breeding business by selling Monsanto Choice Genetics to Newsham Genetics LC in November, divesting itself of "any and all swine-related patents, patent applications, and all other intellectual property". In 2007, Monsanto and BASF announced a long-term agreement to cooperate in the research, development, and marketing of new plant biotechnology products.
In 2008, Monsanto purchased Dutch seed company De Ruiter Seeds for €546 million, and sold its POSILAC bovine somatotropin brand and related business to Elanco Animal Health, a division of Eli Lilly & Co, in August for $300 million plus "additional contingent consideration".
2010 to 2017: Further growth, Syngenta
In 2012, Monsanto purchased for $210 million Precision Planting Inc., a company that produced computer hardware and software designed to enable farmers to increase yield and productivity through more precise planting.
Monsanto purchased San Francisco–based Climate Corp for $930 million in 2013. Climate Corp makes local weather forecasts for farmers based on data modelling and historical data; if the forecasts were wrong, the farmer was compensated.
In May 2013, a worldwide protest against Monsanto corporation, called March Against Monsanto, was held in over 400 cities. A second protest took place in May 2014.
Monsanto tried to acquire Swiss agro-biotechnology rival Syngenta for US$46.5 billion in 2015, but failed. In that year Monsanto was the world's biggest supplier of seeds, controlling 26% of the global seed market (Du Pont was second with 21%). Monsanto was the only manufacturer of white phosphorus for military use in the US.
"Post-Pharmacia" Monsanto overview
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