Bayer AG, represented in the US by the Bayer Corporation, Pittsburgh, and Hoechst-Schering
AgrEvo GmbH, Berlin, have set up a capital fund of 85 million US dollars for young agricultural biotechnology companies, in collaboration with two US banks.

The two companies are each providing 25 million US dollars, the rest coming from the financial partners: the Transamerica Business Credit Corporation (25 million dollars) and the Royal Bank Capital Corporation (10 million dollars). The AgBio-Capital Fund, which is administered by the Burrill & Company Bank, is to be used for the establishment and development of innovative young companies in the field of "green genetic engineering" and will allow the contributing companies to have early access to new biotechnologies. The use of biotechnology in the agricultural and food sectors will further improve the quality of our food and optimize the environmental tolerability of
production methods. 

Bayer is an international, research-orientated company with core activities in Life Sciences, Polymers and Chemicals, as well as Imaging Technologies. In 1997 it achieved total sales of 55 billion deutschmarks and had some 144,600 employees. The Crop Protection Business Group is one of world's leading suppliers of crop protection products, with sales worth 3.9 billion deutschmarks and 7400 employees.

Company news release
N1846