and sale to Institut Mérieux By 1984, government enterprise had become unfashionable under Brian Mulroney and CDC Life Sciences was sold to the private sector. Its holdings, including Connaught, were sold through two public issues in 1984 and in 1987. As the shares were sold off, CDC Life Sciences Inc. was renamed "Connaught Biosciences Inc." on July 4, 1988. In April 1988, Institut Mérieux of France tried to buy a controlling stake in Connaught, but was blocked by the Ontario and Quebec securities commissions because the acquisition favoured one group of shareholders over others. A year later on 7 March 1989, Institut Mérieux proposed a merger between Connaught and its drug division that would result in Mérieux owning 51% of the combined operations. The move was rejected by shareholders. In September 1989, Swiss-based Ciba-Geigy (now Novartis) and California-based Chiron Corporation made a joint offer of $30-a-share (US$764 million). Institut Mérieux made yet another bid for Connaught, topping the joint offer with a bid of $37-a-share (US$813 million). In October, the Canadian government rejected the initial bid on the ground that the offer could not be judged as being of "net benefit" to Canada. At that time, Connaught was the world's largest manufacturer of influenza vaccines but no longer manufactured insulin, instead "ironically ... selling insulin products made by Novo Nordisk Group of Denmark." Since the 1972 sale of the laboratories to the CDC stipulated that the drug firm could not be sold to a foreign-owned company, the University of Toronto opposed the merger "on the ground that a foreign takeover would mean a loss of research spending and jobs in Canada." It took Connaught to court seeking an injunction to block the sale, but withdrew its objection following an agreement with Mérieux that medical research support would continue if the company's bid succeeded. The Canadian government approved the bid for Connaught in December 1989. The move was criticized by many, including Liberal MP Jim Peterson, who was critical of Brian Mulroney's industrial policy and voiced that "no other industrialized country ... would permit the takeover of its leading biotechnology firm." Connaught was sold to Mérieux, and transformed into the North American component of Pasteur Mérieux Connaught (PMC) owned by Mérieux's parent company, Rhône-Poulenc. Since ownership of Connaught had been transferred, "Connaught Biosciences Inc." was formally dissolved in 1990. A decade later in 1999, Rhône-Poulenc merged with Hoechst of Germany to