Lansing, MI, and St. Paul, MN— Neogen Corporation and 3M on Tuesday announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement pursuant to which 3M will separate its food safety business and simultaneously combine it with Neogen.

The combination will create an innovative leader in the food safety sector with a comprehensive product range and a strategic focus on the category’s long-term growth opportunities, according to the announcement.

Neogen is a leading food security company with product offerings spanning food safety, animal safety and genomics. The company’s food safety solutions include rapid diagnostics for the detection of unintended substances, sanitation verification tools and pathogen tests.

In the animal safety area, Neogen offers veterinary instruments and supplies, cleaners and disinfectants for farm and veterinary settings, and insecticides and rodenticides to limit the spread of disease.

The company said its genomics solutions improve the efficiency of herds, help breed associations verify parentage, and enable food safety professionals to identify bacterial strains associated with disease outbreaks.

3M is a leading manufacturer of food safety solutions including Petrifilm™, a globally recognized indicator testing product.

The company’s other food safety-related product offerings include hygiene monitoring and testing, lab equipment and supplies, pathogen testing, prepared and dehydrated media, sample collection, time and temperature monitoring, UHT testing, and allergen testing.

The transaction implies an enterprise value for 3M’s food safety business of approximately $5.3 billion.

Under the terms of the definitive agreements, which involve a tax-free “Reverse Morris Trust” structure, existing Neogen shareholders will continue to own approximately 49.9 percent of the combined company, and 3M shareholders will receive approximately 50.1 percent of the combined company.

The boards of directors of both companies have unanimously approved the transaction.

Neogen’s president and chief executive officer, John Adent, and Neogen’s existing management team will continue to lead the combined company.

The transaction is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of 2022, subject to approval by Neogen shareholders, receipt of required regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customery closing conditions.

“The heightened global focus on food security, sustainability and supply chain solutions around the world presents exciting opportunities for Neogen to be positioned as an innovative leader at the forefront of the growth and digitization of the industry,” Adent continued.