On October 13, Monsanto (St Louis, MO) and American Home Products (AHP; Madison, NJ) cancelled their $33.6 billion merger, which was originally announced in June (Nat. Biotechnol. 16:612 ). AHP CEO John Stafford and Monsanto CEO Robert Shapiro reportedly could not see eye to eye on how to run the combined company. Monsanto share price, which had been falling amid rumors the talks were in trouble, dropped over 24% on the day of the announcement. The split means Monsanto will not receive help from AHP in paying the $5.6 billion bill for its recent purchases of DeKalb Genetics, Delta & Pineland (Nat. Biotechnol. 16:497), and Cargill Seeds ( Nat. Biotechnol. 16:703).