Roundup (herbicide)

Roundup is a brand name of herbicide originally produced by Monsanto, which Bayer acquired in 2018. Prior to the late-2010s formulations, it used broad-spectrum glyphosate-based herbicides.^[2] As of 2009, sales of Roundup herbicides still represented about 10 percent of Monsanto's revenue despite competition from Chinese producers of other glyphosate-based herbicides.^[3] The overall Roundup line of products represented about half of Monsanto's yearly revenue in 2009.^[4] The product is marketed to consumers by Scotts Miracle-Gro Company.^[5] In the late-2010s other non-glyphosate containing herbicides were also sold under the Roundup brand.^[6][7]

Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule in the 1970s, and marketed it as Roundup from 1973. It retained exclusive rights to glyphosate in the US until its US patent expired in September 2000; in other countries the patent expired earlier. The Roundup trademark is registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office and still extant. However, glyphosate is no longer under patent, so similar products use it as an active ingredient.^[8]

The main active ingredient of Roundup is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Another ingredient of Roundup is the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine).

Monsanto also produced seeds which grow into plants genetically engineered to be tolerant to glyphosate, which are known as Roundup Ready crops. The genes contained in these seeds are patented. Such crops allow farmers to use glyphosate as a post-emergence herbicide against most broadleaf and cereal weeds.

The health impacts of the product as well as its effects on the environment have been at the center of substantial legal and scientific controversies. In June 2020, Bayer agreed to pay $9.6 billion to settle tens of thousands of claims, mostly alleging that glyphosate-based Roundup had caused cancer.^[9][10]