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Busquin pushes for R&D budget increases
EFSA to appoint up to 160 scientists
Fruit hoops?
PET packs a pure punch
Spring in Celestial’s step
Rescue remedy for tainted wine
Hi honey, I’m home
Doing it better
Pfizer shuts five R&D centres; thousands may lose jobs
Monsanto’s last Roundup?
R&D
Busquin
pushes for R&D budget increases
 EU
research commissioner Philippe Busquin has published a new action plan
aimed at boosting spending on research and development in the EU from
under two percent of sales to three, with two-thirds coming from the
private sector.
Erkki Ormala from
telecommunications equipment maker Nokia said R&D investment is
increasing more rapidly outside Europe in the US and Asia. China is
producing 500,000 well-educated engineers a year, which is reflected in
where European countries are choosing to invest, he warned.
The action plan proposes creating
“European technology platforms”. It also asks public authorities to
eliminate by 2005current rules and practices on public funding schemes
that bar cross-border cooperation.
To read the action plan and for
more information, please go to http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/era/3pct/pdf/com2003_en.pdf.
Food safety
EFSA to
appoint up to 160 scientists
The European Parliament (EP) has
released enough money to allow the European Food Standards Authority (EFSA)
to hire up to 160 scientists and staff to allow it to proceed with
assessing and managing public health risks from food.
The new hires will staff eight
specialist panels, starting work in late May. More than 1,000 applied for
the posts.
EFSA chairman Stuart Slorach said
“Although we were unable to take on board many of the expert applicants,
the Scientific Committee and Panels will be establishing working groups
and we hope that these scientists will be prepared to assist EFSA's work
in such groups as well as in other ways.”
Earlier the EP held up about half
EFSA’s 16.5 million euro budget, hoping this would force a decision on
the location of EFSA’s head office, Helsinki or Parma. This is still
unresolved, but an EFSA spokesman said the money released so far “allows
for other staff to provide support and backup for the work of risk
assessment - the core function of the authority”.
Nutrition
Fruit
hoops?
The US Department of Health and
Human Services and National Cancer Institute have recruited basketball
star Clyde Drexler to persuade men to eat more fruit and vegetables as a
way of avoiding cancer and other chronic diseases.
They hope Drexler’s example will
boost men’s average consumption of the green stuff from three to nine
servings a day.
Based on shooting hoops, men should
“score” nine points a day. For example, they should have a 150 ml
glass of 100 percent fruit juice (1 point); a medium banana or apple (1
point); 375 ml of vegetable chili (2 points); 250 ml of raw cut-up
vegetables and low-fat dip (2 points); and 750 ml mixed salad (3 points)
for a total of nine points.
Launches
PET
packs a pure punch
 US
juice company Tropicana Products has begun shipping its Pure Premium
orange juice in a new wide-mouth 1.75-litre PET (polyethylene
terephthalate) carafe designed and manufactured by Graham Packaging
Company.
“This is the first true carafe in
PET,” said Graham Packaging’s director of PET packaging development
John Denner. “It has a 63 mm wide-mouth opening, which makes it easy to
pour, and thanks to a patent-pending design, it looks like a glass carafe.
It has all the other advantages of plastic: a no-drip finish, easy to grip
and handle, and, of course, it’s much lighter than glass, and it won’t
break.”
The blow-moulded, stackable carafe
is the first commercial PET container with a blown finish with screw-on
threads suitable for cold filling, but it can be used for hot-fill
applications as well. Besides superior top-load strength, it has superior
side-dent resistance despite being much lighter than a similar injection-moulded
package.
Spring in
Celestial’s step
 US
food firm Celestial Seasonings has launched two new limited edition
springtime teas: Rainbow of Berries, a fruity blend of fine imported black
tea flavoured with natural blueberry, raspberry and strawberry, and
Honeysuckle Peach, a caffeine-free herb tea made with chamomile flowers,
rosehips, honeybush and sunflower petals flavoured with natural peach and
honeysuckle. The highly decorated packaging is designed to evoke winter's
retreat and spring's welcome arrival.
Rescue
remedy for tainted wine
US wine makers and drinkers pour
wine worth $650 million down the drain because of cork taint. Now Merus, a
corporate affiliate of Envirotrol, a leading provider of carbon adsorption
technology, has come up with Wine Rescue, a patent pending filter that
uses carbon-based thin layer adsorption technology to remove the
taint-causing chemicals.
For more go to www.winerescue.com.
Hi honey,
I’m home
Mead, a range of drinks made from
fermented honey, may be set for a revival following the US launch of
several new products by California’s Rabbit's Foot Meadery.
The new items include its Private
Reserve Pear, and dry and sweet honey wines, and a unique honey wine
brandy produced from the spirits of the company's Pear Mead product.
Try the Rabbit's Foot Web site at www.rabbitsfootmeadery.com.
M&A
Doing it
better
With more than seven out of 10
companies either see no change in or a drop in profits after completing
mergers or acquisitions, one wonder why they bother. A new report from
business intelligence firm Cutting Edge Information, promises to show them
a better way, by analysing how the biggest and best do it. These include
Pfizer, Hewlett-Packard, Cisco, IBM, GE and Exxon-Mobil.
Key areas to watch are corporate
goals and needs that M&A can support, picking prospective partners,
smarter due diligence, closing the deal, maximising cultural synergies and
minimising barriers, building internal buy-in and enthusiasm, technology
integration, maintaining sales and marketing effectiveness.
"Mergers & Acquisitions:
Executing Better Deals," available at http://www.cuttingedgeinfo.com/reports/FL59_M&A.htm.
Finance
Pfizer
shuts five R&D centres; thousands may lose jobs
Pharmaceuticals maker Pfizer is to
close five research sites, reshuffle operations and sack staff to cut
costs after its $57 billion acquisition of Pharmacia.
More than 2,000 people work at the
five sites that will be shut down over the next 18 months. Pfizer
spokesman Andy McCormick said not all will lose their jobs, but declined
to say how many.
Pharmacia had 43,000 staff when the
merger was completed on 16 April. McCormick said the company is still
deciding who will receive job offers. “We have 3,000 jobs open
worldwide. We haven't hired anyone in 10 months because of the
acquisition,” he said.
After the Pharmacia takeover,
Pfizer had 25 sites worldwide. It is already closing three, one in France
with 350 employees, one in Germany with 300 people and one in Ontario. It
is also is closing a Pharmacia plant in South San Francisco that employs
300 people and a complex in suburban Chicago with 1,300 employees.
Pfizer said it will keep its
R&D headquarters in Connecticut, where it employs about 6,000. Its
veterinary and inflammatory disease research programs will move to
Michigan, where Pharmacia had a large presence.
Monsanto’s
last Roundup?
A slump in US sales of US chemical
company Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller and less demand for branded
soybean seeds and genetically modified products pushed net sales lower by
six percent to $1.1 billion in the first quarter 2003. But the firm
returned to profits of $60 million compared to a $1.7 billion loss
(following a $1.8 billion asset write-down) for the same period last year.
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