Evidences of Technological Advantage Gains: The Case of Mergers and Acquisitions in the Agrichemical Industry

Six agricultural giants merged into three separate companies in 2016: Dow Chemical and DuPont agreed to a merger, ChemChina purchased Sygenta’s American business interests, and Bayer purchased Monsanto. These mega mergers in agrichemical industry made farmers and consumers feeling uneasy for food system controlled by these three mega-corporations. This study focuses on measuring technological advantages gains from their mergers and acquisitions activities. Through patent bibliometrics analysis based on US patents in recent ten years, we found that Dow Chemical and DuPont have higher technology similarity in Biopesticides, Organic Chemistry, Organic Macromolecular Compounds, Genetic Engineering, and New Plants fields; while Bayer and Monsanto are in Biopesticides, Genetic Engineering, and New Plants fields. We conclude that Dow Chemical and DuPont gain technology advantage through more technology similarity in five agrichemical fields; Bayer gain technology advantage through the effects of technology originality from Monsanto especially in the Genetic Engineering field.