TECHNOLOGY TRASNFER ON-STREAM

FAS discussed the progress in “Bayer AG” executing its order

On 17 October 2019, Head of FAS Igor Artemiev had a meeting with top-executives of “Bayer AG” to discuss the results of executing FAS order issued upon considering the petition of “Bayer AG” for buying “Monsanto Company”.

The obligations of “Bayer AG”, specified in FAS order, concern, in particular, transferring molecular means of selection and germplasm to Russian companies, establishing a research-and-training educational centre for plant biotechnology and providing access to historic data in the field of digital farming.

Hartmut Van Lengerich, Head of Global Crop Protection Asset Management, Crop Science Division, “Bayer AG” pointed out that considerable progress has already been achieved in many areas of the transfer, which to a significant extent was facilitated by robust efforts of the Technology Transfer Centre based at Higher School of Economics – National Research University that monitors how “Bayer AG” executes its obligations.

According to Hartmut Van Lengerich, it is essential that the technology transfer projects, which “Bayer AG” is executing together with the Technology Transfer Centre, is a unique project for the company. “Bayer AG” not just honors its obligations under FAS order, sharing seed production technologies with Russian breeders, but puts a special emphasis on transferring knowledge and protocols for working with its products.  The company welcomes the open-nature collaboration, which both commercial entities and research institutes will be joining.

Summing up the outcome of the meeting, Igor Artemiev said: “The precedent made in the course of considering the “Bayer-Monsanto” merger is just the beginning. The experience obtained, particularly, related to technology transfer as one of the conditions for approving the merger, will be translated in the future to other mergers on innovative markets , to which antimonopoly control applies”.