Industry restructures, draws apart from oil and pharma Some of the biggest changes since the 1920s occurred before the new millennium.

摘要

The1990s heralded the industry's biggest restructuring since the 1920s, particularly in Europe. Developments in the adjacent oil and pharmaceutical industries partly drove the change. Oil companies, particularly in the United States, began to pull back from some chemical operations. Meanwhile, mounting price pressures in pharmaceuticals, driven by government budgetary restraints and the failed Clinton US health-care reforms in 1993, and growing competition in chemicals from newly emerging regions impelled major pharma-chemical conglomerates, especially in Europe, to focus on their core life sciences operations.