Hoechst Chairman Wolfgang Hilger has called the latest setback “terrifying” and “ridiculous.” Last October Hoechst received permission for the second stage of a $40 million production project in which proinsulin would be extracted from biomass produced in the first stage. Insulin would be produced in a third stage. But before this victory celebra tions at Hoechst headquarters were over, the state administrator’s office reversed itself and ordered a delay after several hundred citizens formally protested the decision. Officials decided that a 20-page document submitted by the same environmental group that earlier delayed a Hoechst herbicide plant merited further study, and sought help from the federal health authority. Hoechst responded by requesting immediate implementation of its permit, and a second decision is expected shortly. In its ambitious visions of a decade ago, Hoechst saw itself in fullscale production by the mid- 1980s.
The company is an important manufacturer of insulin drugs: ...
