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MAKING HEADLINES
The St. Louis
region and its companies often make national news—below are a few
highlights.
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Monsanto
Comeback Focus of story in Business Week
The announcement at the end of November 2001, that Pharmacia plans
to spin off its 85 percent share of Monsanto Co. to shareholders,
prompted Business Week to take a look at how St. Louis-based
Monsanto has improved the balance sheet and the focus of its business
over the past two years.
The article,
“A Genetically Modified Comeback,” traces Monsanto’s path from the
controversy of genetically modified plants to its merger with Pharmacia
Corp. Business Week, reports Monsanto “has quietly turned
the corner in its effort to build a successful biotech business.”
In addition, Business Week notes that “backlash against genetically
modified foods is fading as new studies ease fears about the health
and environmental effects of such crops,” though Monsanto still
faces some battle abroad on the issue. According to the article,
about “90 percent of biotech crops worldwide contain a Monsanto
gene,” so the company should profit from the change in public attitude.
Other changes include Pharmacia integrating Monsanto’s pharmaceutical
business into its own, leaving a Monsanto that focuses on biotechnology
and agriculture. This includes Monsanto’s Roundup® herbicide, which
may be considered old-fashioned compared to the biotech product
line, but it leads in its market and provides cash Monsanto needs
to develop and promote the biotech seeds abroad.
Individuals interviewed for the story include Hendrik Verfaillie,
Monsanto president and CEO since February 2000; Fred Hassan, Pharmacia
chairman and CEO; Michael Judd, an analyst at Merrill Lynch & Co.;
and Sue Dibb, a policy analyst at the National Consumer Council
in London. While all acknowledge Monsanto has challenges ahead to
convert overseas consumers to biotech seeds, Business Week
concludes the company is positioned for the long haul and the effort
should be worthwhile.
St. Louis Residents Talk About Moving on in the Aftermath of
Sept. 11 and Anthrax Worries
The New York
Times interviewed more than a half dozen St. Louisans for “In
the Life of a Midwestern City, Life Keeps Moving On.” In the October
31, 2001, story, reporter Sara Rimer takes a look at St. Louis to
show how the rest of the country was dealing with grief and stress
of the new realities following the September 11 terrorist attacks
and growing concerns over the anthrax mailings.
Rimer noted that people all over St. Louis were grieving for victims
of the attacks and their families. However, St. Louisans were also
supporting President Bush and eager to do other things to assure
the terrorists “don’t win.”
Quoting phrases, such as “you’ve got to move on,” and “it’s business
as usual at our house,” The Times article indicated it was
important for St. Louis families to remain optimistic and be reassuring
for their children. In fact, one family was getting ready to celebrate
a daughter’s achievement of making the freshman basketball team
and other families were going trick-or-treating for Halloween. Indeed,
Rimer wrote, “St. Louis is still very much St. Louis.”
The Wall Street Journal Spotlights St. Louis Info Tech Study
St. Louis continues to receive broad recognition as an emerging
national information technology center. The December 17, 2001, edition
of The Wall Street Journal featured reporter Desiree Hanford’s
piece, “Information Technology is Big in St. Louis.” In the article,
Hanford cites the recent RCGA-commissioned IT industry cluster strategy
by the Battelle Memorial Institute, which found that the St. Louis
region “has significant talents and capacities” in IT and has been
a major generator of jobs, “but they aren’t always obvious because
they comprise parts of companies that have been in the area for
many years.”
Hanford interviewed Mitchell Horowitz, director of strategy for
technology partnership at Battelle. Horowitz emphasized how IT,
“an important generator of jobs in the last decade,” has become
important to the local economy. He continued by emphasizing the
region has more than 45,000 people in IT-related jobs, citing from
study results. This makes IT one of the fastest growing segments
of the local economy.
The article also mentions several companies in the region, which
are heavy users of technology or have been recognized for IT innovations,
including Monsanto Co., Solutia Inc., Anheuser-Busch Cos., and Sigma-Aldrich
Corp. Another segment with significant IT-impact locally is communications
services, which accounts for 426 companies and more than 20,000
jobs. Again citing the study, Horowitz concludes this is the largest
IT-producing industry in the region.
The IT strategy complements the previous plant and life sciences
strategy, also by Battelle. A third industry cluster strategy, focusing
on advanced manufacturing, is now underway. |
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