ST. LOUIS — Sigma-Aldrich Corporation (NASDAQ: SIAL) announced today it has secured unconditional approval from Brazil’s Council for Economic Defense (CADE), the final outstanding approval required for the planned acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich by Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany (the “Transaction”). This clearance, which will be effective after a waiting period of 15 days, follows recently received antitrust approvals from the competition authorities of Israel (IAA) and South Korea (KFTC).

On September 22, 2014, Merck and Sigma-Aldrich announced they had entered into a definitive agreement under which Merck, will acquire Sigma-Aldrich for $17 billion – $140 cash per share, establishing one of the leading players in the $130 billion global life science industry.

With the aforementioned clearances now in hand, both companies continue to work toward a Q3 2015 completion of the Transaction. The closing of the Transaction is still subject to the Company’s fulfillment of the commitments made to the European Commission (EC), following the EC’s conditional approval of the transaction on June 15, 2015. Pursuant to those commitments, Merck and Sigma-Aldrich have agreed to sell parts of Sigma-Aldrich’s solvents and inorganics business in Europe. In order to provide sufficient time to fulfill those commitments, the term of the Merger Agreement dated September 22, 2014, has been extended.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich, a leading Life Science and Technology company focused on enhancing human health and safety, manufactures and distributes 250,000 chemicals, biochemicals and other essential products to more than 1.4 million customers globally in research and applied labs as well as in industrial and commercial markets. With three distinct business units – Research, Applied and SAFC Commercial – Sigma-Aldrich is committed to enabling science to improve the quality of life. The Company operates in 37 countries, has approximately 9,300 employees worldwide and had sales of $2.79 billion in 2014. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its website at www.sigma-aldrich.com.