Ciba-Geigy

Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical company at Basel, formed in 1970 by the merger of Ciba, founded in 1859, with J. R. Geigy, whose dye business dated from the eighteenth century. Made medicines, dyes, agrochemicals and specialty chemicals, produced treatments including carbamazepine and desferrioxamine, spun off its specialty chemicals as Ciba Specialty Chemicals in 1997 and merged its pharmaceutical and agrochemical business with Sandoz in 1996 to form Novartis.