Rhône-Poulenc
Rhône-Poulenc was a French chemical and pharmaceutical company founded in 1928 with the merger of Société Chemique des Usines du Rhône and Établissements Poulenc Frères. In 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, Rhodia. Rhodia is the world leader in several segments of the chemical industry.