of $100 million per year. Generics play a bigger role in the agro than in the pharma industry. They represent some 70% of the global market. China National Chemical Corp, a.k.a. ChemChina Group, is the world's largest supplier of generic farm chemicals. Mahkteshim Agan, Israel, and Cheminova, Denmark follow on the ranks 2 and 3. Apart from these multibillion-dollar companies, there are hundreds of smaller firms with sales of less than $50 million per year, mainly in India and China. The incidence of the cost of the active ingredient is about 33%; i.e., much higher than in drugs. Depending on the climatic conditions affecting crop yields, consumption and prices of agrochemicals are subject to wide fluctuations from year to year, impacting also the suppliers. The molecular structures of modern agrochemicals are much more complex than in older products, but lower than of their pharma counterparts. The average molecular weight of the top 10 is 330, as compared with 477 for the top 10. In comparison to reagents used in pharmaceutical fine chemical syntheses, hazardous chemicals, e.g. sodium azide, halogens, methyl sulfide, phosgene, phosphorus chlorides, are more frequently used. Agrochemical companies sometimes outsource just these steps, which require specialized equipment, on toll conversion deals. With exception of the pyrethroids, which are photostable modifications of naturally occurring pyrethrums, active ingredients of agrochemicals rarely are chiral. Examples within herbicides are the world's longstanding top-selling product, Monsanto's round-up (glyphosate). Syngenta's cyclohexadione-type mesotrione and paraquat dichloride. Within insecticides, the traditional organophosphates, like malathion, and pyrethroids such as γ-cyhalotrin are being substituted for by neonicotinoids, like Bayer's imidacloprid and Syngenta's thiamethoxam and pyrazoles, such as BASF's fipronil. Chloranthaniliprole is the most important representative of Du Pont's award-winning anthranilic diamide family of broad spectrum insecticides. Within fungicides, the strobilurins, a new class, are growing rapidly and already have captured more than 30% of the $10 billion global fungicide market. Syngenta's azoxystrobin was the first product launched. Also BASF's F-500 Series, a.o. pyraclostrobin and kresoxim-methyl, Bayer CropScience, and Monsanto are developing new compounds in this class. Combination pesticides, such as Monsanto's Genuity and SmartStax are more and more frequently used. Other specialty chemical industries Apart from life sciences, specialty chemicals -and therefore also their active ingredients, commodities or fine chemicals, as the case may be- are used ubiquitously, in both industrial applications, such as biocides and corrosion inhibitors in cooling water towers, and consumer applications, such as personal