Bayer

{{Infobox company | company_name = Bayer AG | company_logo = | company_type = Aktiengesellschaft | traded_as = | founder = Friedrich Bayer, Johann Friedrich Weskott | foundation = 1863 | location = Leverkusen, Germany | key_people = Marijn Dekkers (CEO), Manfred Schneider (Chairman of the supervisory board) | revenue = €35.09 billion (2010) | operating_income = €2.730 billion (2010) a chemical used in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and other extermination camps. During World War II, the company also extensively used slave labor in factories attached to large slave labor camps, notably the sub-camps of the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp. When the Allies split IG Farben into several pieces after World War II for involvement in organized Nazi war crimes, Bayer reappeared as an individual business. The Bayer executive Fritz ter Meer, sentenced to seven years in prison by the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal, was made head of the supervisory board of Bayer in 1956, after his release.

In 1978, Bayer purchased Miles Laboratories and its subsidiaries Miles Canada and Cutter Laboratories (along with a product line including Alka-Seltzer, Flintstones Vitamins and One-A-Day Vitamins, and Cutter insect repellent). In 1994, Bayer AG purchased Sterling Winthrop's over the counter drug business from SmithKline Beecham and merged it with Miles Laboratories, thereby reacquiring the U.S. and Canadian trademark rights to "Bayer" and the Bayer cross, as well as the ownership of the Aspirin trademark in Canada.

On November 2, 2010, Bayer AG signed an agreement to buy Auckland-based animal health company Bomac Group. Due to confidentiality obligations, no financial information was disclosed.

Bayer has discovered, among others:

Aspirin — an analgesic, anti-fever, and anti-coagulant medicine, arguably the most commercially successful drug ever

Heroin (diacetylmorphine) — an addictive drug, originally sold as a cough treatment. Heroin was a Bayer trademark, until World War I

Prontosil as the first sulfonamide

Ciprofloxacin — an antibiotic used to treat anthrax and urinary tract infections.

Levitra — a treatment for Erectile Dysfunction

Polyurethane — a very versatile polymer for a wide variety of applications

Polycarbonate — the material of the CD, etc. (Makrolon)

Suramin

Parathion — insecticide

Propoxur — insecticide

Primodos hormone pregnancy testing

Logo

The company's corporate logo, the Bayer cross, was introduced in 1904. It consists of the horizontal word "BAYER" crossed with the vertical word "BAYER", both words sharing the "Y", and enclosed in a circle. An illuminated version of the logo lights up the skyline of Leverkusen, where Bayer is headquartered. Installed in 1958, this is the largest illuminated advertisement in the world.

Operations

In order to separate operational and strategic managements, Bayer AG was reorganized into a holding company in December 2003. The group's core businesses were transformed into limited companies, each controlled by Bayer AG. These companies are: Bayer CropScience AG; Bayer HealthCare AG; Bayer MaterialScience AG and Bayer Chemicals AG, and the three service limited companies Bayer Technology Services GmbH, Bayer Business Services GmbH and Bayer Industry Services GmbH & Co. OHG.

Following the reorganization, its chemicals activities (with the exception of H.C. Starck and Wolff Walsrode) were combined with certain components of the polymers segment to form the new company Lanxess on July 1, 2004. Lanxess was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in early 2005. Bayer HealthCare's Diagnostics Division was acquired by Siemens Medical Solutions in January 2007.

Bayer AG shares are listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange and previously on the New York Stock Exchange. Bayer is governed by a board of management, consisting of: Klaus Kühn, Wolfgang Plischke, Richard Pott, and Marijn Dekkers.

In 2004 Bayer HealthCare AG acquired the over-the-counter (OTC) Pharmaceutical Division of Roche Pharmaceuticals.

On March 13, 2006, Merck KGaA announced a €14.6bn bid for Schering AG. Merck's takeover bid was surpassed by Bayer's $19.5bn bid on March 23, 2006.

On March 11, 2008, Bayer HealthCare announced an agreement to acquire the portfolio and OTC division of privately owned Sagmel, Inc., a US-based company that markets over-the-counter medications in most of the Commonwealth of Independent States countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Belarus, and others.

Locations

Germany - headquarters of the holding company as well as the subsidiary companies Bayer CropScience, Bayer MaterialScience and Bayer HealthCare

Belgium - including production facilities for Makrolon and polyurethanes (in Antwerp)

Canada - Toronto headquarters and offices in Ottawa and Calgary

France - including European headquarters of Bayer CropScience (in Lyon)

Italy - including 5 production facilities

The Netherlands - including 8 facilities and subsidiaries with 600 employees in 3 different sectors; Marketing and Sales, Production and Research.

Philippines - including production of Canesten, Autan and Baygon.

United States - Bayer USA operates a suburban Pittsburgh headquarters.

United Kingdom - Newbury Berkshire

Australia

Argentina

Aruba

Bahamas

Barbados

Bolivia

Brazil

Cambodia

Chile

China

Colombia

Costa Rica

Cuba

Curaçao

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Finland

Guatemala

Honduras

Hong Kong SAR

Hungary

India

Israel

Indonesia

Jamaica

Japan

Laos

Mexico

Myanmar

New Zealand

Nicaragua

Paraguay

Peru

Panama

Poland

Serbia

Singapore

South Africa

South Korea

Spain

Switzerland

Taiwan

Thailand

Trinidad and Tobago

Turkey

United Kingdom

Uruguay

Venezuela

Vietnam

Subgroups and Service Companies

Bayer AG comprises three subgroups and three services companies. The subgroups and service companies operate independently, led by the management holding company.

Bayer HealthCare

Bayer HealthCare is Bayer's pharmaceutical and medical products subgroup. It is involved in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of products that aim to improve the health of people and animals. Bayer HealthCare comprises a further four sub-divisions: Bayer Schering Pharma, Bayer Consumer Care, Bayer Animal Health and Bayer Medical Care.

However, due to cost factors, the company has decided to cut back its sponsoring of its top sports teams in most areas. The sponsoring agreements with first and second-division teams in basketball, team handball, and volleyball, as well as in olympic-level athletics and fencing, will be terminated in 2008 or 2010. Despite their many successes (multiple German national championships as well as numerous Olympic medals), they are not considered to be valuable enough as a marketing tool in terms of their cost-to-benefit ratio. Only the very "telegenic" football (soccer) team, whose marketing value is very high due the exposure in the media and the popularity of the sport itself, will continue to be supported as in the past. General sponsoring of sport for youth and for handicapped people will also be continued as in the past.

Controversies

Nazi chairman and aspirin discoverer

In his book Aspirin: The Story of a Wonder Drug, author Diarmuid Jeffreys investigated Bayer's sponsorship of the experiments of Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele. In 1956 Fritz ter Meer became chairman of Bayer's supervisory board. He was convicted at the Nuremberg trials for his part in carrying out experiments on human subjects at Auschwitz and imprisoned for five years. He was found "guilty of count two, plunder and spoliation, and count three, slavery and mass murder, sentenced to imprisonment for seven years."

Jefferys also details Arthur Eichengrün, the Bayer chemist who first found an aspirin formulation which was tolerable in the human stomach and did not have the unpleasant side effects of nausea and gastric pain. Eichengrün also invented the name aspirin and was the first person to use the new formulation to test its safety and efficacy. However, Eichengrün was excluded from the official version of Bayer's history in 1934 because of his Jewish origin. Instead, it was claimed by Bayer that aspirin was "discovered" by an "Aryan" scientist, Felix Hoffman, to alleviate the sufferings of his rheumatic father. Bayer AG publishes beliefs in the latter.

Mr. Jeffreys' claims are widely reflected in other publications and official records, although they are also disputed in other publications.

It has also been documented that aspirin compounds were successfully synthesized by various other scientists or groups thereof in the years between 1848–1869, long before Bayer's claims. This fact led to various patent litigations in the early 20th century.

Liberty Link Rice

In August 2006, it became apparent that the United States rice crop had been contaminated with unapproved genetically engineered Bayer CropScience rice as undisclosed amounts were found in commercial rice supplies.

More specifically, the genetically engineered rice has an herbicide-resistance trait. These forms of rice are commonly referred to amongst US rice growers as, Liberty Link Rice 601 or LL 601. Approximately 100 varieties of rice produced primarily in the following six states: Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and California. The US rice crop is valued at approximately $1.88 billion annually. In 2005, approximately 80% of the rice exported from the US was of the long grain variety, the variety contaminated.

Imidacloprid

French and Nova Scotian beekeepers claim Bayer's seed treatment imidacloprid kills honeybees. France has since issued a provisional ban on the use of imidacloprid for corn seed treatment pending further action. A consortium of U.S. beekeepers filed a civil suit against Bayer CropScience for alleged losses.

HIV infected blood products

A cite from http://www.haemophilia-litigation.com/, access date 31.05.2006:

:"After 1978, there were four major companies in the United States engaged in the manufacture, production and sale of Factor VIII and IX: Armour Pharmaceutical Company, Bayer Corporation and its Cutter Biological division, Baxter Healthcare and its Hyland Pharmaceutical division and Alpha Therapeutic Corporation, which have been or are defendants in certain lawsuits.

:The plaintiffs allege that the companies manufactured and sold blood factor products as beneficial "medicines" that were, in fact of likely to be contaminated with HIV and/or HCV. This resulted in the mass infection and/or deaths of thousands of haemophiliacs worldwide.

:It is believed that three of these companies, Alpha, Baxter, and Cutter, recruited and paid donors from high risk populations, including prisoners (i.e. prison-based collections), intravenous drug users, and plasma centers with predominantly homosexual donors, esp. in cities with large populations thereof, to obtain blood plasma used for the production of Factor VIII and IX. Plaintiffs allege that these companies failed to exclude donors, as mandated by federal law, with a history of viral hepatitis. Such testing could have substantially reduced the likelihood of plasma containing HIV and/ or HCV entering plasma pools."

Baycol

After fifty two deaths were blamed on an alleged side effect of Bayer's anti-cholesterol drug, Baycol, its manufacture and sale were discontinued in 2001. The side effect was rhabdomyolysis, causing renal failure, which occurred with a tenfold greater frequency in patients treated with Baycol in comparison to those prescribed alternate medications of the statin class.

Methyl parathion poisoning case

In October 2001, Bayer was taken to court after 24 children in the remote Andean village of Tauccamarca, Peru were killed and 18 severely poisoned when they drank a powdered milk substitute contaminated with the insecticide methyl parathion. A Peruvian Congressional Subcommittee found significant evidence of criminal responsibility by Bayer and the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture.

Medicaid reimbursement

In January 2001, Bayer agreed to pay $14 million to the United States and 45 states to settle allegations under the federal False Claims Act that the company caused physicians and other health care providers to submit fraudulently inflated reimbursement claims to Medicaid.

2006 Trasylol safety advisory

In September 2006, Bayer was faulted by the FDA for not revealing during testimony the existence of a commissioned retrospective study of 67,000 patients, 30,000 of whom received Trasylol and the rest other anti-fibrinolytics. The study concluded Trasylol carried greater risks. The FDA was alerted to the study by one of the researchers involved. Although the FDA issued a statement of concern they did not change their recommendation that the drug may benefit certain patients. In a Public Health Advisory Update dated October 3, 2006, the FDA recommended that "physicians consider limiting Trasylol use to those situations in which the clinical benefit of reduced blood loss is necessary to medical management and outweighs the potential risks" and carefully monitor patients. The FDA took Trasylol off the market on November 5, 2007.

Prostate cancer claims

In October 2009 the Center for Science in the Public Interest sued Bayer for "falsely claiming that the selenium in Men's One A Day multivitamins might reduce the risk of prostate cancer."

Neonicotinoid pesticides

In December 2010 a leaked memo from the EPA’s Environmental Fate and Effects Division asserted “Clothianidin’s (Bayer's neonicotinoid pesticide) major risk concern is to non-target insects (that is, honey bees). Exposure through contaminated pollen and nectar and potential toxic effects therefore remain an uncertainty for pollinators.” In January 2011 Avaaz.org launched an online petition to ban neonicotinoid pesticides.

Chemical accidents

On August 28, 2008, an explosion occurred at the Bayer CropScience facility at Institute, West Virginia. A runaway reaction ruptured a tank and the resulting explosion killed two employees. The ruptured tank was close to a methyl isocyanate tank which was undamaged by the explosion.

Awards and recognition

In October 2008, Bayer's Canadian division was named one of "Canada's Top 100 Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc., and was featured in Maclean's news magazine. Later that month, the Canadian division was also named one of Greater Toronto's Top Employers, which was announced by the Toronto Star newspaper. Bayer USA was given a score of 85 (out of 100) in the Human Rights Campaign's 2011 Corporate Equality Index, a measure of gay and lesbian workplace equality.

See also

List of German companies

List of pharmaceutical companies

Medical technologist

References

Further reading

Blaschke, Stefan (1999). Unternehmen und Gemeinde: Das Bayerwerk im Raum Leverkusen 1891-1914. Cologne: SH-Verlag, ISBN 3-89498-068-0

Tenfelde, Klaus (2007). Stimmt die Chemie? : Mitbestimmung und Sozialpolitik in der Geschichte des Bayer-Konzerns. Essen: Klartext, ISBN 9783898618885

External links

http://www.cbgnetwork.org/index2.html Coalition against BAYER-Dangers

http://www.wonderdrug.com/ The original Bayer Asprin

2008 Q&A; with Bayer USA CEO Greg Babe

Category:Biotechnology companies Category:Chemical companies of Germany Category:Multinational companies Category:Pharmaceutical companies of Germany Category:Companies established in 1863 Category:IG Farben Category:Nanotechnology companies Category:Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp Category:Nutrition Category:German brands Category:Leverkusen Category:Companies based in North Rhine-Westphalia