Elanco and Dow AgroSciences team up to meet global demand for food

Dow AgroSciences CEO Tim Hassinger

Elanco, the animal health division of Eli Lilly ($LLY), and Dow AgroSciences ($DOW) said they are partnering to jointly focus on helping producers increase meat and milk production to meet a growing global demand.

The two companies said they will work on developing integrated solutions by using Elanco's expertise in animal health along with Dow AgroSciences' germplasm and feed technologies. Demand for meat, milk and eggs is forecast to grow more than 60% in the next few decades, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization research cited by the companies in a press release.

"Together, we will be looking for ways to develop total solutions that involve improving both the carrying capacity of the land and the health and productivity of production animals to help our customers meet the needs of the growing world," Tim Hassinger, president and chief executive officer of Dow AgroSciences, said in a statement.

Jeff Simmons, president of Elanco, added in the press release that "We'll have to produce more with less because we are already overusing our resources, equivalent to 1.5 earths each year."

The announcement is interesting, in that Elanco said this summer it was selling the feed additive business of Lohmann, the German animal health company it acquired in April. That news was part of Eli Lilly's quarterly earnings report. The company said at that time that it had determined that the Lohmann feed additive business was "nonstrategic to Lilly's Elanco animal health unit."

- see the release (PDF)
- read Feed Navigator's take

Special Report: Top 10 animal health companies of 2013 - Elanco