Rhône-Poulenc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Rhône-Poulenc was a French chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in 1928 through the merger of Société Chimique des Usines du Rhône (Chemical Society of the Factories of the Rhône) and Établissements Poulenc Frères (Poulenc Brothers Company). In January 1999, Rhône-Poulenc merged with Hoechst AG to form Aventis. In 2004, Aventis went on to merge with Sanofi-Synthélabo forming Sanofi-Aventis, the third largest pharmaceutical company in the world.
The agricultural chemicals division of Rhône-Poulenc, known as Aventis CropScience after the merger with Hoechst, was sold to the German chemical and pharmaceutical company Bayer in 2002. In 1998, the chemicals division of Rhône-Poulenc was spun-off into a separate company named Rhodia.
Rhône-Poulenc originally funded the Rhône-Poulenc Prizes, now known as the Royal Society Prizes for Science Books.
