Merger Update

AstraZeneca PLC
26 July 2000


EUROPEAN COMMISSION APPROVES SYNGENTA MERGER
--------------------------------------------

AstraZeneca and Novartis announced today that the European Commission (EC) has
cleared the planned merger of the Zeneca Agrochemicals business with the
Novartis Agribusiness to form Syngenta AG, the world's first global dedicated
agribusiness company.

The approval follows the agreement of AstraZeneca and Novartis to divest or
license certain of their crop protection products.  The disposals are broadly
as anticipated by the parties at the time they announced the proposed
transaction in December 1999 and in aggregate represent less than 5 per cent
of Syngenta's unaudited pro forma 1999 sales.

Dr. Tom McKillop, Chief Executive Officer of AstraZeneca, said: 'This is good
news and is another important milestone successfully passed in our intention
to spin off the Zeneca agrochemicals business.  The plan to launch Syngenta in
the final quarter of this year remains firmly on track.'

Zeneca Agrochemicals has already announced, in June, its plans to divest its
worldwide acetochlor corn herbicide business, sold under the brand names
Surpass, Topnotch and FulTime (primarily in the US) and Trophy, Wenner and
Relay (primarily in the rest of the world), to address the concerns of both
the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the EC.

Other key disposals agreed by Zeneca Agrochemicals to remove overlaps between
its and Novartis' businesses in Europe include the sale of its European
sulcotrione corn herbicide business (Mikado) and its worldwide flutriafol
cereal fungicide business (including the Impact brand).  The combined turnover
of all the Zeneca products to be divested or licensed was approximately
USD240m in 1999.

In a separate announcement, Novartis gave details of the divestments it has
agreed with the EC in order to secure approval to the merger.

In June, Novartis announced that it had initiated the sale of its entire
worldwide Flint business, including the Swiss production facilities, to obtain
both FTC and EC clearance of the merger.

In addition to Flint, the EC has also requested Novartis to divest or license
certain other parts of its existing business.  This includes the straight
formulation of the fungicide cyproconazole in Europe, the herbicide
propaquizafop, the insecticide tau-fluvalinate, and specific fungicide
formulations, used for example on cereals in certain Nordic countries. 
Overall 1999 sales of the Novartis products to be divested or licensed are
estimated at about USD100 million.

Without the combined sales of the activities to be divested by the two
companies (USD340m), Syngenta would have had unaudited pro forma 1999 sales of
approximately USD7 billion.

The merger remains subject to approval by the FTC, antitrust authorities in
certain other jurisdictions and shareholders of AstraZeneca and Novartis. 
Both companies plan to hold Extraordinary General Meetings on October 11 to
enable shareholders to vote on the merger.  The companies are still aiming to
complete the merger in the final quarter of this year.

Zeneca Agrochemicals had sales of USD2.657bn in 1999.

July 26, 2000

Further enquiries to:

Elizabeth Sutton: Tel. [phone]
Michael Olsson: Tel. [phone]
Ed Seage: Tel. [phone]
Jorgen Winroth: Tel. [phone] or [phone]