As breeders know, mixing species is, according to this story, a tricky business. Nature can produce a winner such as wheat, which is more interesting and productive than its wild-grass parents. More often you end up with a mule: a useful animal, but, because it is sterile, unable to offer much to future generations.

The worldUs leading Rlife-sciencesS firms, among them Novartis, AstraZeneca and Monsanto, which have put together agricultural products and drugs, are wondering if they got their cross right. Much-vaunted exchanges of technologies and joint development have yet to materialise. The story says that compared with agriculture, making drugs is so profitable that many life-sciences firms find agrochemical divisions a drag on their share prices. One observer claims that, RtheyUve all prepared plans of how to dump their agricultural divisions.S Yet the separation may not be so simple.

Making weed-killer might seem to have little in common with inventing, say, a cure for arthritis. But for the firms that in the 1990s began styling themselves as life-sciences operations, the combination made sense.

David Evans, head of agrochemicals research at AstraZeneca, was cited as saying agriculture and drugs overlap. Since the genes of soyabeans and the scientists who tinker with them are written in a common code, both businesses need data on DNA. So the agricultural and drug divisions of AstraZeneca make use of the same tools, and contract with the same biotech companies, such as Incyte, which specialise in genomics. It takes sophisticated science to develop premium-brand pesticides that meet EuropeUs and AmericaUs high environmental standards. Whether devising medicines or insecticides, scientists also use high-tech facilities in combinatorial chemistry.

AstraZenecaUs drug and agriculture businesses also have joint projects in toxicology: just as pesticides must poison pests, not the diner, so drugs must kill bugs, not the patient. And molecules that show early promise in one business are occasionally handed to the other. NTBC, which began life as a potential herbicide, is now used to treat a rare metabolic disorder called tyrosinemia, which causes liver failure. AstraZeneca has licensed the molecule to Swedish Orphan AB, which specialises in rare diseases. Yet Ken Moonie, of Verdant Partners, a consultancy, was cited as saying that such interactions between drugs and agriculture are exceptional, adding, RThereUs very little communication, as far as I can see, let alone collaboration between businesses. The ag and pharma guys speak very different languages.S Even when they do communicate, it may not matter much: basic research accounts for no more than a fifth of development costs. For the rest of a productUs life-cycle, from field tests to marketing, companies separate their agricultural and pharmaceutical divisions.

With good reason. As Tray Thomas, head of Context Consulting, points out, consumers will pay the earth for a new medication, but farmers balk at a new, expensive chemical. Agriculture is inherently less profitable than pharmaceuticals, with profit margins of around 10%, about a third of what drugs earn. Few pesticides fetch more than a billion dollars; and indeed the worldwide market in chemical pesticides and seeds is $35 billion, roughly a tenth of global drug sales.

Such differences have, the story says, been heightened by a slump in commodity prices. Over the past two years prices of soyabeans and wheat have fallen by 30%, and that of cotton by more than a third, thanks to a fall in demand in Asia and fat harvests in exporting countries. Sales of conventional pesticides have been undermined by genetically modified crops, such as MonsantoUs soyabeans, designed to survive a coating of Roundup which kills surrounding weeds.

The story says that American Home Products, whose agriculture division, American Cyanamid, sells only chemicals, has been hit particularly hard. But firms that include biotech have also suffered. In June Novartis said it would lay off 1,100 workers in its agri-business division so as to save SFr100m ($66m) a year. DuPont has cut 15% of its agrochemicals workforce. In Europe, a consumer backlash against genetically modified foods has made matters worse. Although Novartis has yet to see a dip in sales of genetically modified seed, it worries that American farmers may be next to stop buying. Dieter Brauer, NovartisUs head of stakeholder relations, fears that the controversy may spill into drugs. A few German doctors have threatened to boycott NovartisUs drugs because of the firmUs endorsement of GM crops. Credit Suisse has said that it is making its $103m RethicalS fund GM-free; analysts at Deutsche Bank are recommending that firms boost their shares by getting rid of their agribiotech divisions.

Publicly, those in charge of life-sciences companies are putting a brave face on events. Some are even persevering. DuPont is still committed to a diversified portfolio of chemicals, agriculture and drugs. Its high-tech engineering division, Protein Technologies International, is working on crops with enhanced nutritional properties, such as cholesterol-lowering soyabeans. And Monsanto has created a division, Integrated Protein Technologies, that makes drug molecules in genetically modified plants. RI donUt mean to sound biblical about these things, but agricultural downturns come and go in seven-year cycles,S says Sir David. He is confident that the public furore will pass and that in the next few years, all will be well. Privately, though, executives are worried that shareholders will not wait that long.

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